OF  THE 

UNIVERSITY 

OF 


f- 


>MA§    PAINE 


/ 


THEOLOGICAL  WORKS 

fW? 


THOMAS    PAI 


PRQfES 


NET 


TO    WHICH   ARE    ADDED 

THE  PRO/ESSION  OF  FAITH  OF  A  SAVOYARD  VICAR, 

BY  J.  J.  ROUSS] 

)US  PIECES. 


AND  OTHER  M1S< 


BOSTON  : 

PRINTED   FOR   THE   ADVOCATES   OF    COMMON    SENSE. 


\ 


G.  W.  &  A.  J.  MATSELL,  Respectfully  inform  their 
friends  and  the  public  that  they  have  for  sale,  No.  94  Chatham- 
Street,  New-  York,  The  Philosophical  Writings  of  the  most  cel- 
ebrated Authors,  including  D'Holbach,  Mirabeau,  Gibbon,  D'Ar- 
gens,  Volney,  Voltaire,  Dupuis,  Diderot,  Hume,  Paine,  Palmer, 
Carlile,  Taylor,  Owen,  &c.  &c.  Also  the  books  mentioned 
in  the  annexed  Catalogue,  among  which  will  be  found  the  ablest 
productions  of  Sceptical  Authors. 

N.'B.     A  liberal  discount  made  to  Wholesale  dealers. 

*#*  Will  be  published  in  a  few  days,  "  The  Syntagma,"  by 
the  Rev.  Robert  Taylor. 


G.  W.  &  A.  J.  M.  Keep  also  on  hand,  a  large  assortment  of 
Classical,  Scientific,  and  Miscellaneous  Works. 


CATALOGUE  of  Liberal  Books  for  sale  by  G.  W.  &  A.  J.  MATSE^L, 

No.  94  Chatham,  near  Pearl-st.,  New- York. 

Hume's  Essays  on  the  Human  Understand- 
ing, &c., 

Voltaire's  Tragedies,  &c.  .     .    

Voltaire's  Philosophical  Dictionary,  com- 

plete,  14  vols. 

Fabrication  of  the  Pentateuch,  proved  by 
anachronisms,  &c.  by  Doctor  Cooper.  12 
Modern  Materialism,  by  Dr.  Knowlton,  1 00 
Two  Remarkable  Lectures,          do. 

Thoughts  on  Religion, 06 

Fable  of  the  Bees, 03 

Dialogue  between  Epictetus  &  Son,     .     06 
An  address  on  the  influence  of  the  Clerical 
Profession,  by  R.  D.  Owen.  06 

Zetetic  Sermon,  with  rules  for  Christians, 

1  cent  per  copy,  or  50  cents  per  100. 
Third  General  Epistle  of  Peter.  01 

Discourse   on   the    word  God,  &c.  by  the 

Lady  of  the  Isis, 06 

Discourse  on  Life  &  Death,  by  the  Lady  of 

the  Rotunda, 06 

Character  of  the  Christian  Mysteries,  by 

Voltaire, 

Jehovah  Unveiled,  or  character  of  the  Jew- 
ish Deity,  25 

Letter  to   Professor   Silliman,  by  Doctor 

Cooper, 25 

God  of  the  Jews,  &c.  with  plates,  .  25 
Fashion  &  Law,  by  A.  Gilbert,  .  .  06 
Frances  Wright's  Lectures  separately  in 

pamphlets,  each, 06 

Sir  Isaac  Newton's  Infidelity,       .     .       06 
A  Lecture  on  Mysterious  Religious   emo- 
tions,         10 

Several  Political  Pamphlets,  by  Seth,  Lu- 
ther, Roosevelt,  Hale,  &c.  each     .       06 
Gobbet's  History  of  the  Reformation — Cot- 
tage Economy — Advice  to  Young  Men — 
French  &  English  Grammars,  &c.  &c. 
Jefferson's  Works,  4  vols.  8vo. 
Lawrence's  Lectures  on  Physiology  Zoolo- 
gy, and  the  natural  History  of  Man. 

Byron's  Works,  1  vol 2  50 

Writings  of  Frederick  the  Great,  of  Prus- 
sia, 14  vols. 

Palmer's  Principles  of  Nature,  or  a  deve- 
lopement  of  the  moral  causes  of  happiness 
and  misery  among  the  human  species. 

Orthodox  Bibles, 12 

Doubts  of  Infidels, 12 

Exposition  of  Calvinism  by  Dr.  Cooper,  09 
Trial  of  Friends  at  Steubenville,  Ohio, 

orrespondent,  5  vols 7  50 

Talleyrand's  Letter  to  Pope  Pius  VII.    25 


Good   Sense,    or    Natural    Ideas   opposed 
to  Supernatural,  by  Baron   D'Holbach. 

price, §0  44 

Shelley's  Queen  Mab,  a  Philosophical  Po- 
em,             37 

Few  days  in  Athens,  by  Frances  Wright, 

with  additional  chapters,      ...       44 

Frances  Wright's  Lectures,  complete  in  1 

volume,  last  ed G9 

Moral  Physiology,  or  a  short  and  plain  trea- 
tise on  the  population  question,  by  R.  D. 

Owen, 37 

(Several  other  works  on  the  same  subject.) 
Bachelor  &-  Owen's  Discussion  on  the  ex- 
istence of  God,  and  authenticity  of  the 
Bible,  2  vols.       ......       1  25 

The  Spiritual  Mustard  Pot,      ...       37 
The  Diegesis,  being  a  discovery  of  the  ori- 
gin, evidences,  and  early  history  of  Chris- 
tianity, by  the  ttev.  Robert  Taylor,  1  00 
Kneeland's    Review  of  the  Evidences   of 

Christianity, 50 

Vice  Unmasked,  an  essay  on  the  Immoral 

Influence  of  Law,        75 

Ecce  Homo!  ! 1  00 

Voltaire's  Philosophical  Dictionary,  .  7 
Paine's  Political  &  Theological  Work?,  3 
vols.  hound,  gilt,  each,  ...  1  50 
Paine's  Theological  works  half  bound,  1  0( 
Paine'fi  Age  of  Reason,  8vo.  ...  50 
Popular  Tracts,  'edited  by  R.  D.  Owen,  in 

1  vol ;    .     .     .       44 

The  Bible  of  Reason,  2  vols.       .     .     1  50 
Discussion  on  the  authenticity  of  the  Bi- 
ble,       75 

Volnoy'js  Ruins, ;J7 

The  Comet,  containing  discourses  by  the 

Rev.  Robert  Taylor,  2  vols.     .     .     4  00 

The   Apocryphal  New   Testament,  being 

the  Gospels,   Epistles,  &c.  rejected  by 

the  Council  of  Nice. 

Philosophical  Library  per  no.       .     .       37 

Owen's   view  of  public   Discussion,  with 

opening  speech  to  reply  to  Rev.  Alex. 

Campbell, 56 

Treatise  on  the  Law  of  Libel,  Liberty  of  the 
Press,  &c.  by  Thos.  Cooper,     .     .       75 
National  Hymns,  for  the  use  of  those  who 
are  slaves  to  no  sect,         ....     25 
Condorcet  on  the  'mind, 
Voltaire's  Candid, 
Eternity  of  the  Universe,  by  Toulmin, 

Revolt  of  the  Bees, 100 

Reproof  of  Brutus,    .     .     .     .     .     .  1  25 


INTRODUCTION. 


BY  THE    EDITOR. 


NO  writer  probably  has  exposed  the  impositions  practised  upon  mankind  under 
the  garb  of  religion  with  more  effect  than  Thomas  Paine ;  and  no  one  has  borne  a 
greater  share  of  obloquy  from  those  who  conceive  their  interests  to  be  connected  with 
a  continuance  of  the  fraud.  The  pulpit  and  the  press  have  teemed  incessantly  with 
the  most  virulent  censures  against  him. — But  patient  and  persevering,  temperate  and 
firm,  he  suffered  no  error  to  escape  him,  and  the  exposure  of  the  blunders  and  ab- 
surdities of  his  adversaries  is  the  only  revenge  which  he  has  condescended  to  take  for 
their  insolent  abuse.  His  object  was  the  happiness  of  man,  and  no  calumny  could 
divert  him  from  his  purpose.  He  conscientiously  believed  that  human  happiness  de- 
pended on  the  belief  of  one  God,  and  the  practice  of  moral  virtue  ;  and  that  all  reli- 
gious faith  beyond  that  led  to  persecution  and  misery.  History  gives  an  awful 
confirmation  of  the  justness  of  his  opinion.  Dr.  Bellamy,  author  of  "  The  history 
of  all  religions,"  comes  to  this  conclusion  at  last,  that  he  was  *f  well  assured 
that  true  religion  consists  neither  in  doctrines,  nor  opinions,  but  in  uprightness  of 
neai-t." 

Religion  has  been  most  shamefully  perverted,  for  sinister  purposes,  and  made  td 
consist  in  the  belief  of  something  supernatural  and  incomprehensible  ;  and  these  in- 
comprehensible beliefs  are  made  to  vary  in  different  countries  as  may  suit  those  who 
tyrannize  over  the  minds  and  consciences  of  men.  Thus,  in  some  countries,  he  who 
says  he  believes,  that  a  certain  man,  in  former  times,  was  translated  bodily  to  heaven, 
that  another  took  a  journey  leisurely  there  in  a  fiery  chariot,  and  that  a  third  arrest- 
ed the  course  of  the  sun  to  give  him  more  daylight  for  human  slaughter,  is  denomin- 
ated a  pious,  good  man.  In  other  countries,  a  person  to  gain  the  same  appellation, 
must  believe  that  Mahomet,  in  one  night,  took  a  ride  to  heaven  upon  his  horse  Bo- 
rack,  had  a  long  conversation  with  the  angel  Gabriel,  visited  all  the  planets,  and  got 
to  bed  with  his  wife  before  morning ;  and,  upon  another  occasion,  that  he  cut  the 
moon  in  two  parts,  and  carried  the  one  half  in  his  pocket  to  light  his  army.  Whilst 
on  the  contrary  the  philosopher,  who,  wishing  to  instruct  and  render  his  fellow  men 
happy,  honestly  declares  that  he  puts  no  faith  in  such  idle  stories,  is  considered  an 
impious,  wicked  man. 

It  is  time  that  these  prejudices,  so  disgraceful  to  the  intelligence  of  ll.e  present  age, 
should  be  banished  from  the  world,  and  it  behoves  all  men  of  understanding  and 
talents  to  lend  a  helping  hand  to  effect  it. 

"Prejudices,"  says  Lequinio,  an  elegant  French  writer,  in  his  work  entitled,  *  Les 
Prejuges  Detruits,'  "  arise  out  of  ignorance  and  the  want  of  reflection ;  these  are 
the  basis  on  which  the  system  of  despotism  is  erected,  and  it  is  the  master  piece  of 
art  in  a  tyrant,  to  perpetuate  the  stupidity  of  a  nation,  in  order  to  perpetuate  tta 
slavery  and  his  own  dominion.  If  the  multitude  knew  how  to  think,  would  they  be 
dupes  to  phantoms,  ghosts,  hobgoblins,  spirits,  &c.  as  they  have  been  at  all  timea 
and  in  all  nations.  What  is  nobility  for  example,  to  a  man  who  thinks  1  What  are 
all  those  abstract  beings,  children  of  an  exalted  imagination,  which  have  no  existence 
but  in  vulgar  credulity,  and  who  cease  to  have  being  as  soon  as  we  cease  to  believe  in 
them  1  The  greatest,  the  most  absurd,  and  the  most  foolish  of  all  prejudices,  is  that 
very  prejudice  which  induces  men  to  believe  that  they  are  necessary  for  their  hap- 
piness, and  for  the  very  existence  of  society." 

The  same  writer  observes,  that  "  while  {here  are  religions,  we  are  told  there  will 
.  be  fanaticism,  miracles,  wars,  knaves,  and  dupes.  There  are  penitents,  fanatics. 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

and  hypocrites,  in  China  and  in  Turkey,  as  well  as  in  France  ;*  but  there  is  not  any 
religion,  perhaps,  in  which  there  exists  such  a  spirit  of  intolerance  as  in  that  profess- 
ed by  the  Christian  priests,  the  author  of  which  preached  up  toleration  by  his  exam- 
ple, as  well  as  by  his  precepts." 

Notwithstanding  the  intolerant  spirit  which  prevails  pretty  universally  among  all 
those,  who  call  themselves  true  believers ;  notwithstanding  the  persecutions  and  in- 
quisitorial tortures  which  take  place  daily,  in  a  greater  or  less  degree,  throughout  the 
Christian  world,  there  are  many  who,  although  they  profess  liberal  opinions,  are  BO 
indifferent  in  matters  of  religion,  as  to  contend,  that  they  ought  not  to  be  discussed, 
except  by  those  whose  peculiar  province  it  is  to  teach  them.  Upon  this  principle,  Mr. 
Paine  has  been  condemned  by  many,  even  of  his  friends,  as  though  all  men  had  not 
an  equal  stake  at  issue,  and  an  equal  right  to  express  their  opinions  on  so  momen- 
tous a  subject.  This  sentiment  exhibits  an  apathy  to  human  suffering,  in  those  who 
express  it,  that  is  certainly  not  very  flattering  to  their  goodness  of  heart. 

Were  it  not  for  the  writings  of  philosophers,  which,  where  they  have  been  per- 
mitted to  be  read,  have  in  some  measure  softened  the  asperity  of  fanaticism,  all  Chris- 
tendom would,  no  doubt,  now  experience  the  same  sufferings  as  are  at  this  time  in- 
dured  in  Spain,  under  the  government  of  the  pious  Ferdinand. 

Even  Bishop  Watson,  who  wrote  an  "  apology  for  the  Bible,"  in  answer  to  the 
"Age  of  Reason,"  disclaims  the  above  illiberal  sentiment;  graciously  conceding 
the  right  of  private  judgment  in  matters  of  religion.  He  says,  "  it  would  give  me 
much  uneasiness  to  be  reported  an  enemy  to  free  inquiry  in  religious  matters,  or  as 
capable  of  being  animated  into  any  degree  of  personal  malevolence  against  those 
who  differ  from  me  in  opinion.  On  the  contrary,  I  look  upon  the  right  of  private 
judgment,  in  every  concern  respecting  God  and  ourselves,  as  superior  to  the  controul 
of  human  authority." 

It  is  with  some  reluctance  that  I  make  the  following  extract  of  a  private  letter,  a 
copy  of  which  has  lately  been  inclosed  to  me  by  my  correspondent  at  New-York  ; 
but  the  contents  are  so  much  in  point  on  this  occasion,  that  I  am  induced  to  take  the 
liberty.  It  was  written  by  one  of  the  most  distinguished  patriots  of  the  American 
revolution,  and  who  still  remains  a  living  witness  of  the  services  of  those  who  essen- 
tially contributed  to  that  memorable  event,  in  answer  to  a  letter  covering  that  of  Mr. 
Paine  to  Andrew  A.  Dean  ;  which  will  appear  in  this  publication. — "  I  thank  you, 
sir,  for  the  inedited  letter  of  Thomas  Paine,  which  you  have  been  so  kind  as  to  send 
me.  I  recognize  in  it  the  strong  pen  and  dauntless  mind  of  Common  Sense,  which 
among  the  numerous  pamphlets  written  on  the  same  occasion,  so  pre-eminently  united 
us  in  our  revolutionary  opposition. 

"  I  return  the  two  numbers  of  the  periodical  paper,  as  they  appear  to  make  part  of 
a  regular  file.  The  language  of  these  is  too  harsh,  more  calculated  to  irritate  than  to 
convince  or  to  persuade.  A  devoted  friend,  myself  to  freedom  of  religious  inquiry  and 
opinion,  I  am  pleased  to  see  others  exercise  the  right  without  reproach  or  censure  ; 
and  I  respect  their  conclusions,  however  different  from  my  own.  It  is  their  own 
reason,  not  mine,  nor  that  of  any  other,  which  has  been  given  them  by  their  creator 
for  the  investigation  of  truth,  and  of  the  evidences  even  of  those  truths  which  are 
presented  to  us  as  revealed  by  himself.  Fanaticism,  it  is  true,  is  not  sparing  of 
her  invectives  against  those  who  refuse  blindly  to  follow  her  dictates  in  abandon- 
ment of  their  own  reason.  For  the  use  of  this  reason,  however,  every  one  is  responsi- 
ble to  the  God  who  has  planted  it  in  his  breast,  as  a  light  for  his  guidance,  and  that 
by  which  alone  he  will  be  judged.  Yet  why  retort  invectives  1  It  is  better  always 
to  set  a  good  example  than  to  follow  a  bad  one." 

The  advice  recommended  to  controvertists  in  the  foregoing  letter  is  certainly  wor- 
thy to  be  adopted.  That  recrimination,  however,  should  some  times  be  resorted  to, 
by  those  who  advocate  liberal  opinions,  is  not  surprising,  when  we  take  into  consider- 
ation the  dictatorial  stile  in  which  ignorance  is  cultivated  by  those  who  reap  the  ad- 
vantage of  it,  and  the  asperity  with  which  those  are  attacked  who  attempt  to  un- 
deceive mankind,  and  to  discover  to  them  their  true  interests,  by  pointing  out  the 
errors  with  which  they  are  surrounded. 

"  Error,"  says  St.  Pierre,  in  his  Indiart  Cottage,  or  Search  after  1  ruth,  " 
work  of  man ;  it  is  always  an  evil.     It  is  a  false  light  which  shines  to  lead  us  astray. 
I  cannot  better  compare  it  than  to  the  glare  of  a  fire  which  consumes  the  habitation 
it  illumines.     It  is  worthy  of  remark,  that  there  is  not  a  single  moral  or  physical 
evil  but  has  an  error  for  its  principle.    Tyrannies,  slavery  and  wars,  are  founded  on 

*The  author's  country. 


INTRODUCTION.  5 

political  errors,  nay  even  on  sacred  ones ;  for  the  tyrants  who  have  propagated  them 
have  constantly  derived  them  from  the  Divinity,  or  some  virtue,  to  render  them  re- 
spected by  their  subjects. 

It  is,  notwithstanding,  very  easy  to  distinguish  error  from  truth.  Truth  is  a  natural 
light,  which  shines  of  itself  throughout  the  whole  earth,  because  it  springs  from  God. 
Error  is  an  artificial  light,  which  needs  to  be  fed  incessantly,  and  which  can  never  be 
universal,  because  it  is  nothing  more  than  the  work  of  man.  Truth  is  useful  to  all 
men ;  error  is  profitable  but  to  a  few,  and  is  hurtful  to  the  generality,  because  in- 
dividual interest,  when  it  separates  itself  from  it,  is  inimical  to  general  interest. 

Particular  care  should  be  taken  not  to  confound  fiction  with  error.  Fiction  is  the 
veil  of  truth,  whilst  error  is  its  phantom;  and  the  former  has  been  often  invented  to 
dissipate  the  latter.  But,  however  innocent  it  may  be  in  its  principle,  it  becomes 
dangerous  when  it  assumes  the  leading  quality  of  error ;  that  is  to  say,  when  it  is 
turned  to  the  particular  profit  of  any  set  of  men." 

The  Christian  religion  answers  exactly  to  this  description  of  error,  in  every  particu- 
lar. It  has  been  "  fed  incessantly"  for  upwards  of  eighteen  hundred  years ;  millions 
upon  millions  have  been  expended  on  its  priests  to  propagate  it,  and  it  is  still  far  from 
being  universal.  According  to  Bellamy's  history  of  all  Religions  ;  of  eight  hundred 
millions  of  souls,  which  the  world  is  supposed  to  contain,  "  one  hundred  and  eighty -three 
millions  only  are  Christians.  One  hundred  and  thirty  millions  are  Mahometans. 
Three  millions  are  Jews,  and  four  hundred  and  eighty-seven  millions  are  Pagans. 

Is  not  this  a  convincing  proof  that  Christianity  cannot  be  true  1  If  it  had  been 
divinely  inspired,  and  God  had  actually  visited  this  earth,  for  the  purpose  of  teaching 
it  to  man,  would  it  not,  long  before  this  time,  have  extended  throughout  the  world  7 
It  is  the  work  of  man,  and  therefore  can  never  become  universal. 

Ministers  of  the  gospel,  instead  of  teaching  the  principles  of  moral  virtue,  which 
would  render  them  useful  to  their  fellow  men,  are  almost  incessantly  inculcating  their 
peculiar  and  favorite  dogmas  :  Wishing  to  make  religion  to  consist,  in  what  it  does 
not,  in  the  belief  of  unintelligible  creeds,  in  order  to  render  the  p:  •  ject  complex,  that 
their  preaching  might  be  thought  the  more  necessary  to  explain  ' 

A  great  portion  of  these  ministers,  moreover  are  mere  boys  ;  \7lio,  after  learning 
a  little  Greek  and  Latin,  set  up  the  trade  of  preaching  ;  and  anathematise  all  who 
do  not  submissively  bow  to  their  dictation.  It  is  lamentable  to  see  decriped  age  hob- 
bling after  such  teachers  in  search  of  the  road  to  heaven.  One  grain  of  common 
sense  would  save  them  all  that  trouble. 

Although  the  injury,  resulting  from  the  heavy  contributions  required  for  the  support 
of  Christianity,  is  not,  perhaps,  so  great  AS  that  arising  from  the  demoralizing  effects  of 
substituting  nonsensical  creeds  for  moral  virtue,  yet  these  expenditures  are  serious 
evils. 

By  a  work  lately  published,  relative  to  the  consumption  of  wealth  by  the  clergy,  it 
appears,  that  the  clergy  of  Great  Britain  alone  receive  annually,  the  enormous  sum  of 
8,896,000  pounds  sterling,  which  is  divided  among  18,400  clergymen  ;  but  very  un- 
equally. Bishop  Watson  gets,  for  his  share  of  the  booty,  £7,000  a  year,  which  one 
would  think,  was  sufficient  to  induce  him  to  vindicate  the  Christian  religion,  or  any 
other,  equally  productive.* 

The  primate  Lord  J.  Beresford,  archbishop  of  Armagh,  has  above  63,000  acres  of 
land,  of  which  more  than  50,000  are  arrable.  His  grace  is  a  man  in  middle  life,  and 
of  ;\  healthy  constitution.  Suppose  him  to  run  his  life  against  the  leases  let  by  his 
predecessor,  he  would  have  the  power  of  ruining  perhaps  a  hundred  families,  and  ob- 
taining for  himself  a  rack  rent  of  not  less  than  £70,000  or  £80,000  per  annum. 

The  see  of  Dublin  has  upwards  of  20,000  acres.  Much  of  this  being  near  the  me- 
tropolis, must  be  considered  as  of  extraordinary  value. 

But  every  thing  is  eclipsed  by  Derry  ;  there  we  have  94,000  Irish  acres  appropri- 
ated to  my  lord  the  bishop — little  short  of  150,000  English  acres  !  and  should  his 

*  Dr.  Franklin,  in  a  letter  to  Dr.  Price,  (1780)  speaking  of  the  religious  tests,  in- 
corporated into  the  constitution  of  Massachusetts,  observes,  "If  Christian  preachers 
had  continued  to  teach  as  Christ  and  his  apostles  did,  without  salaries,  and  as  the 
Quakers  now  do,  I  imagine  tests  would  never  have  existed ;  for  I  think  they  were 
invented  not  so  much  to  secure  religion  itself  as  the  emolument  of  it.  When  a  re- 
ligion is  good,  I  conceive  it  will  support  itself;  and  when  it  does  not  support  itself, 
and  God  does  not  take  care  to  support  it,  .«o  that  its  professors  are  obliged  to  call  for 
the  help  of  the  civil  power,  'tis  a  sign,  I  apprehend,  of  its  being  a  bad  one."  Religious 
tests  have  been  abrogated  in  Massachusetts  by  thejate  revision  of  its  constitution. 


C  INTRODUCTION. 

lordship  at  the  beginning  of  his  incumbency,  have  thought  fit  to  run  his  life  against 
the  tenants,  he  would  now,  at  the  expiration  of  twenty  years,  possess  a  larger  rent 
roll  than  any  subject  in  the  world.  Yet  it  was  this  very  see  which  begged  assistance 
towards  repairing  its  own  cathedral  ! 

By  the  Almanach  du  clergy  du  France  for  1823,  it  appears  that  there  are  fifty-foui 
bishops  and  archbishops,  already  consecrated,  out  of  the  eighty  France  is  to  have. 
There  are,  also,  already,  35,676  priests  in  activity,  exclusive  of  missionaries,  and  50,934 
is  the  number  the  bishops  judge  necessary  to  complete  the  Army  of  the  Church — 2,031 
are,  moreover,  pensioned.  Then,  in  the  schools  and  at  their  different  colleges,  there 
are  29,379  youths  preparing  for  clerical  duties.  The  revenue  of  the  priests  ev-in  now 
amounts  to  28,000,000  francs,  exclusive  of  sums  destined  to  repair  the  churches,  and 
other  ecclesiastical  services,  which,  amounting  to  1,500,000  francs,  will  also  pass 
through  their  hands,  and  exclusive  of  the  sums  collected  by  the  missionaries,  and  con- 
tributed by  the  communes,  both  of  which  are  very  considerable.  From  the  same 
book,  it  appears  that  since  1802,  the  legacies  and  gifts  received  by  the  church,  and 
held  in  Mortmain,  amount  to  13,388,554  francs,  giving  an  annual  revenue,  after  ab- 
stracting from  this  sum  many  church  ornaments,  of  450,000  francs.  Of  this  sum,  no 
less  than  2,332,554  francs  were  contributed  within  the  last  year. 

There  are  in  Rome,  19  cardinals,  27  bishops,  1450  priests,  1532  monks,  1464  friars, 
and  332  seminarists.  The  population  of  Rome,  in  1821,  without  reckoning  the  Jews, 
amounted  to  146,000  souls. 

Among  the  evils  entailed  upon  mankind  by  establishing  a  religion  that  requires  the 
renunciation  of  reason,  hypocrisy  holds  a  conspicuous  place,  as  the  most  pernicious  in 
its  effects  on  society.  It  lowers  the  dignity  of  man ;  it  checks  the  progress  of  the 
human  mind,  by  smothering  that  frank  and  liberal  communication  of  thought,  which 
leads  to  improvement ;  in  short,  it  destroys  all  confidence  among  friends  the  most  in- 
timate. "  If,"  says  La  Bruyere,  "  I  marry  an  avaricious  woman,  she  will  take  care 
of  my  money  ;  if  a  gambler,  she  may  win  ;  if  a  learned  woman,  she  may  instruct  me ; 
if.  a  vixen,  she  will  teach  me  patience  ;  if  a  coquette,  she  will  take  pains  to  please  ; 
but  if  I  marry  a  hypocrite  that  affects  to  be  religious,  (une  devote)  what  can  I  expect 
from  her  who  tries  to  deceive  even  her  God,  and  who  almost  deceives  herself." 

The  clergy  ure  fond  of  attributing  all  the  calamities,  incident  to  human  nature,  to 
supernatural  influence.  Not,  it  is  presumed,  because  they  believe  what  they  pretend 
but  on  account  of  the  reputation  it  gives  them  for  extraordinary  piety.  Thus  in  the 
sea-port  towns  even  of  the  United  States,  which  have  been  afflicted  with  yellow 
fever,  I  have  observed,  that  some  of  their  clergy  considered  it  as  a  special  judgment  of 
God,  arising  from  the  passion  of  the  people  for  threatrical  exhibitions,  &c.  And  fast- 
ings and  prayers  were  resorted  to,  to  appease  the  wrath  of  the  Almighty.  But  these 
doctors  of  divinity,  it  is  said,  when  attacked  with  yellow  fever,  or  any  other  se- 
rious complaint,  immediately  employ  a  physical  doctor  to  cure  them;  which  is  suffi- 
cient evidence  that  they  do  not  believe  their  own  doctrine  ;  for  it  would  be  vain,  and 
impious,  to  attempt  to  cure  those  whom  God  intended  to  destroy.  Incalculable  evils 
may  result  from  the  promulgation  of  this  doctrine  :  Because  those  who  have  faith  in 
it,  may,  as  is  the  fact  in  some  countries,  refuse  to  take  medicine  in  case  of  sickness, 
and  thereby  sacrifice  their  own  lives  to  folly  and  superstition. 

The  Emperor  of  China,  however,  fully  agrees  with  these  Christian  doctors  in  his  con- 
ceptions of  supernatural  interference  in  passing  events ;  and  takes  the  same  means  to 
assuage  the  wrath  of  the  Gods,  as  appears  by  the  following  statement  of  what  took 
place  in  consequence  of  a  hurricane  and  drought  at  Peking  and  Pe-che-le  province. 

On  the  13th  of  May,  1818,  there  was  a  violent  hurricane  at  Peking,  which  produced 
much  alarm  among  all  sorts  of  people.  The  Emperor  published  an  edict  on  the  sub- 
ject, in  which  he  declares  he  was  extremely  frightened.  He  says  "  it  rained  dust," 
and  produced  such  profound  darkness  that  nothing  could  be  seen  without  a  candle. 
It  was  not  so  violent  however  as  to  produce  any  serious  injury,  and  the  apprehensions 
of  the  people,  and  particularly  of  the  Emperor,  proceeded  from  the  belief  that  such 
phenomena  are  punishments  for  some  mismanagement  among  the  rulers  of  the  country. 
The  Emperor  gives  a  long  list  of  the  evil  effects  of  improper  measures  in  governing, 
and  exhorts  his  officers  to  join  him  in  self-examination  to  find  out  the  true  cause  of  this 
calamity.  In  another  document  he  blames  the  imperial  astronomers  for  not  foreseeing 
and  foretelling  the  hurricane,  instead  of  flattering  him  as  they  had  formerly  done, 
with  the  hope  of  tranquillity  ;  and  to  calculate  with  accuracy  the  intentions  of  heaven. 
He  also  despatched  a  messenger  towards  the  south-east,  where  the  storm  arose,  as  he 
is  confident  there  must  have  been  some  act  of  oppression  committed  in  that  direction. 


INTRODUCTION.  7 

The  Mathematical  Board  sent  up  the  result  of  their  learned  researcnes  on  the  sub- 
ject, but  declined  to  express  any  opinion  of  their  own.  If  it  had  continued  a  whole 
day  it  would  have  indicated  some  disagreement  between  the  Emperor  and  his  Minis- 
ters; also  a  great  drought  and  scarcity  of  grain.  If  but  for  an  hour,  pestilence  in 
the  south-west,  and  half  the  population  diseased  in  the  south-east.  If  the  wiad  had 
blown  the  sand,  and  moved  stones  with  a  loud  noise,  inundations,  &c. 

The  Gazette  of  the  same  date  contains  a  paper  in  which  the  Emperor  expresses 
much  grief  at  a  long  drought  at  Pe-che-le  province.  He  had  sent  his  sons  to  fast,  pray 
and  sacrifice  to  heaven,  earth,  and  the  god  of  the-  wind,  but  this  had  obtained  only  a 
slight  shower.  His  Majesty  wrote  a  prayer  himself,  and  appointed  a  day  to  go  with 
his  brother,  and  two  more  persons,  to  sacrifice;  the  Emperor  to  heaven,  his  brother 
to  the  earth,  the  first  of  their  companions  to  the  divinity  that  rules  the  passing  year, 
and  the  second  to  the  god  of  the  winds.  A  day  was  also  appointed  for  a  general  fast 
and  sacrifice,  on-  which  the  kings,  nobles,  ministers  of  state,  attending  officers,  sol- 
diers, and  servants,  were  to  appear  in  a  peculiar  cap  and  garment  as  a  mark  of 
penitence.  The  two  sons  of  his  Majesty  were  to  sacrifice  at  the  same  time  in  two 
other  places. 

Such  idle  vagaries  ought  to  be  eradicated  from  the  mind  of  man,  that  he  may  con- 
template his  true  predicament  in  nature,  provide  for  his  wants  and  ward  off  approach- 
ing danger.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  time  is  not  far  distant  when  this  happy  event  will 
be  realized,  especially  in  that  portion  of  the  globe  where  science  is  generally  diffused. 
It  requires  only  the  honest  and  bold  co-operation  of  men  of  learning  to  effect  it. 

As  the  opinions  of  great  and  good  men,  provided  they  have  no  interest  to  uphold 
superstition,  ought  to  have  weight  on  the  minds  of  those  less  informed,  I  shall  here 
subjoin  the  brief  sentiments  of  a  few  celebrated  characters,  in  support  of  Mr.  Paine's 
infidelity. 

DR.  FRANKLIN. 
Letter  from  Dr.  Franklin  to  the  Rev.  George  WTiitcfield. 

PHILADELPHIA,  JUNE  6th,  1753. 
DEAR  SIR, 

I  received  your  kind  letter  of  the  2d  inst.  and  am  glad  to  hear  ikat  you  increase  in 
strength — I  hope  you  will  continue  mending  until  you  recover  your  former  health  and 
firmness.  Let  me  know  whether  you  still  use  the  cold  bath,  and  what  effect  it  has. 
As  to  the  kindness  you  mention,  I  wish  it  could  have  been  of  more  serious  service  to 
you ;  but  if  it  had,  the  only  thanks  that  I  should  desire,  are,  that  you  would  always 
be  ready  to  serve  any  other  person  that  may  need  your  assistance  ;  and  so  let  good 
offices  go  round  ;  for  mankind  are  all  of  a  family.  For  my  own  part,  when  I  am 
employed  in  tserving  others,  I  do  not  look  upon  myself  as  conferring  favors,  but  as 
paying  debts.  In  my  travels  and  since  my  settlement,  I  have  received  much  kindness 
from  men,  to  whom  I  shall  never  have  an  opportunity  of  making  the  least  direct  re- 
turn ;  and  numberless  mercies  from  God,  who  is  infinitely  above  being  benefited  by 
our  services.  These  kindnesses  from  men,  I  can,  therefore,  only  return  to  their  fel- 
low men ;  and  I  can  only  show  my  gratitude  to  God  by  a  readiness  to  help  his  other 
children,  and  my  brethren,  for  I  do  not  think  that  thanks  and  compliments,  though  re- 
peated weekly,  can  discharge  our  real  obligations  to  each  other,  and  much  less,  to  our 
Creator.  ' 

You  will  see,  in  this,  my  notion  of  good  works,  that  I  am  far  from  (yxpecting  to  merit 
heaven  by  them.  By  heaven,  we  understand  a  state  of  happiness,  infinite  in  degree 
and  eternal  in  duration.  I  can  do  nothing  to  deserve  such  a  reward.  He  that,  for 
giving  a  draught  of  water  to  a  thirsty  person,  should  expect  to  be  paid  with  a  good 
plantation,  would  be  modest  in  his  demands  compared  with  those  who  think  they  de- 
serve heaven  for  the  little  good  they  do  on  earth.  Even  the  mixed  imperfect  pleas- 
ures we  enjoy  in  this  world,  are  rather  from  God*s  goodness  than  our  merit ;  how 
much  more  so  the  happiness  of  heaven  1  for  my  part,  I  have  not  the  vanity  to  think 
I  deserve  it,  the  folly  to  expect  or  tiie  ambition  to  desire  it,  but  content  myself  in  sub- 
mitting to  the  disposal  of  that  God  who  made  me,  who  has  hitherto  preserved  and 
blessed  me,  and  in  whose  fatherly  goodness  I  may  well  confide,  that  he  never  will 
make  me  miserable,  and  that  the  affliction  I  may  at  any  time  suffer,  may  tend  to  my 
benefit. 

The  faith  you  mention  has,  doubtless,  its  use  in  the  world.  I  do  not  desire  to  see 
it  diminished,  nor  would  I  desire  to  lessen  it  in  any  man,  but  I  wish  it  were  more 
productive  of  good  works  than  I  have  generally  seen  it.  1  mean  real  good  works, 
works  of  kindness,  charity,  mercy  and  public  spirit;  not  holy  day-keeping,  sermon- 
hearing  or  reading  j  performing  church  ceremonies,  or  making-  long  prayers,  filled 


8  INTRODUCTION 

wit!1,  flatteries  and  compliments,  despised  'even  by  wise  men,  and  much  less  capable 
of  pleasing  the  Deity. 

Tiif  worship  of  God  is  a  duty — the  hearing  and  reading  may  be  useful;  but  if  men 
rest  in  hearing  and  praying,  as  too  many  do,  it  is  as  if  the  tree  should  value  itself  on 

watered  and  putting  forth  leaves  though  it  never  produced  any  fruit. 
Your  good  master  thought  much  less  of  these  outward  appearances  than  many  of  his 
in  >  ](,-))  disciples.     He  preferred  the  doers  of  the  word  to  the  hearers  ;  the  son  that 
iv  refused  to  obey  his  father  and  yet  performed  his  commands,  to  him  that 
;  .1  his  readiness  but  neglected  the  work  ;  the  heretical  but  charitable  Samari- 

tan, ('.)  the  uncharitable  but  orthodox  priest  and  sanctified  Levite,  and  those  who  gave 
foo;l  to  the  hungry,  drink  to  the  thirsty,  and  raiment  to  the  naked,  entertainment  to 
Mi^er,  and" never  heard  of  his  name,  he  declares  shall,  in  the  last  day,  be  ac- 
cepted ;  when  those  who  cry,  Lord,  Lord,  who  value  themselves  on  their  faith,  though 
f.!«  ;if  enough  to  perform  miracles,  but  have  neglected  good  works,  shall  be  rejected, 
l!(  professed  that  he  came  not  to  call  the  righteous,  but  sinners  to  repentance,  which 
implied  his  mddest  opinion  that  there  were  some  in  his  time  so  good  that  they  need 
i.ot  h.'ar  him  even  for  improvement,  but  now-a-days  we  have  scarcely  a  little  parson 
tlia!  docs  not  think  it  the  duty  of  every  man  within  his  reach  to  sit  under  his  petty 
I.;'  ''-'ration,  and  that  whoever  omits  this  offends  God — I  wish  to  such  more  humility, 
:jnd  to  you,  health  and  happiness. 

Being  your  friend  and  servant, 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 


Extract  of  a  letter  from  the  same  to  Ezra  Stiles,  President  of  Yale  College. 

PHILADELPHIA,  MARCH  9,  1790. 
lii.v.  AND  DEAR  SIR, 

"Yon  desire  t  •>  know  something  of  my  religion.     It  is  the  first  time  I  have  been  ques- 
1  upon  it.     ]?nl  I  cannot  take  your  curiosity  amiss,  and  shall  endeavor  in  a  few 
vi'/Jsto  gratify  it.     Here  is  my  creed.     I  believe  in  one  God,  the  Creator  of  the 
ise.     That  he  governs  it  by  his  Providence.     That  he  ought  to  be  worshipped, 
ihe  most  acceptable  service  we  render  him  is  doing  good  to  his  other  children. 
That  the  soul  of  man  is  immortal,  and  will  be  treated  with  justice  in  another  life  re- 
Kperling  its  conduct  in  this.     Those  I  take  to  be  the  fundamental  points  in  all  sound 
>vlir',i.>n,  an.l  I  regard  them  as  you  do  in   whatever  sect  I  meet  with   them.     As  to 
Jesus  of  Nazareth,  my  opinion  of  whom  you  particularly  desire,  I  think  the  system  of 
in  >rals,  and  his  religion,  as  lie  left  them  to  us,  the  best  the  world  ever  saw,  or  is  like 
lo  see.]   b::t  I  apprehend  it  has  received  various  corrupting  changes,  and  I  have,  with 
"I"  the  present  dissenters  in  England,  some  doubts  as  to  his  divinity  ;  though  it  is 
-lion  I  <!)  not  dugmati/e  upon,  having  never  studied  it,  aivi  think  it  need! 
Ini-y  myself  with  it  now,  when  I  expect  soon  an  opportunity  of  knowing  the  truth 
\vith  less,  trouble.*     I  see  no  harm  however  in  its  being  believed,  if  that  belief  has  the 
;.  <  .  I  consequence?,  as  probably  it  has,  of  making  his  doctrines. more   respected,  and 
more  observe  I,  especially  us  I  do  not  perceive  that  the  Supreme  takes  it  amiss,  by 
distinguishing  the  believers  in  his  government  of  the  world  with  any  particular  marks 
«>f  his  displeasure.      I  shall  only  add,  respect  ing  myself,  that  having  experienced  the 
irss  of  that  Being,  in  conducting  me  prosperously  through  a  long  life,  I  have  no 
(lorib!  of  its  continuance  in  the  next,  though  without  the  smallest  conceit  of  meriting 
!My  sentiments  on  this  head  you  will  see  in  the  copy  of  an  old  letter 
i'i .-lose. I, t  which  I  wrote  in  answer  to  one  from  an  old  religionist,  whom  I  had  re- 
lieved in  a  paralytic  case  by  electricity,  and  who  being  afraid  I  should  grow  proud 
upon  it,  sent  me  his  serious,  though  rather  impertinent  caution. 

With  great  and  sincere  esteem  and  affection,  I  am,  &c. 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN. 
REMARKS. 

As  Dr.  Franklin  evidently  disbelieves  in  any  benefit  to  be  gained  in  a  future  state 
by  faith  in  the  mysteries  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  as  the  little  influence  it  may 

*  The  Doctor  had  indeed  deferred  an  examination  into  the  divinity  of  Jesus  to  a 
ve>\v  late  hour  ;  for  he-  says  in  the  same  letter,  **  I  am  now  in  my  85th  year,  and  very 
infirm."  He  died  the  17th  of  April  following. 

t  Supposed  to  refer  to  the  foregoing  letter  to  George  Whitefield. 


INTRODUCTION.  & 

have  in  producing  good  works,  are  evidently  over-balanced  by  the  evils  produced  by 
it,  no  good  reasons  can  be  urged  for  its  cultivation.  The  objections  to  this  faith  are, 
that  it  creates  pride,  uncharitableness  and  persecution.  Whoever  believes  that  he 
knows  perfectly  the  will  of  God.  naturally  despises  all  others  not  favored  with  the 
like  divine  grace.  He  becomes  a  contemptible  despot,  prepared  to  commit  any  act 
of  outrage  against  unbelievers  in  his  creed,  in  order  the  more  effectually  to  ingratiate 
himself  with  the  divinity  he  worships.  He  takes  up  the  cause  of  God  as  his  own  af- 
fair, and  acts  accordingly. 

Those  who  call  themselves  orthodox  believers  of  the  present  day,  would  do  well  to 
imitate  the  example  of  the  Roman  Emperor,  Titus,  who,  in  his  edict,  occasioned  by 
the  importunities  of  the  orthodox  of  that  time  for  the  punishment  of  Christians  for 
unbelief,  observed,  "  I  awft  very  well  assured,  that  the  Gods  themselves  will  take  care, 
that  this  kind  of  men  shall  not  escape,  it  being  much  more  their  concern,  than  it  can 
be  yours,  to  punish  those  that  refuse  to  worship  them." 

To  sho\v  Dr.  Franklin's  opinions  more  fully  upon  this  subject,.  I  shall  make  a  few 
more  extiacts  from  his  writings.  In  a  letter  to  B.  Vaughan,  (1788)  he  says,  "  Re- 
member me  affectionately  to  good  Dr.  Price  and  to  the  honest  heretic  Dr.  Priestley.  I 
do  not  call  him  honest  by  way  of  distinction  :  for  I  think  all  the  heretics  I  have 
known  have  been  virtuous  men.  They  have  the  virtue  of  fortitude,  or  they  would  not 
venture  to  own  their  heresy ;  and  they  cannot  afford  to  be  deficient  in  any  of  the  other 
virtues,  as  that  would  b.ve  advantage  to  their  many  enemies ;  and  they  have  not,  like 
orthodox  sinners,  such  a  number  of  friends  to  excuse  or  justify  them.  Do  not  how- 
ever mistake  me.  It  is  not  to  my  good  friend's  heresy  that  I  impute  his  honesty. 
On  the  contrary,  'tis  his  honesty  that  has  brought  upon  him  the  character  of  heretic." 

Again,  in  a  letter  to  Mrs.  Partridge,  (1788)  he  observes,  "  You  tell  me  our  poor 
friend,  Ben  Kent  is  gone,  J  hope  to  the  regions  of  the  blessed  ;  or  at  least  to  some 
place  where  souls  are  prepared  for  those  regions !  I  found  my  hope  on  this,  that 
though  not  so  orthodox  as  you  and  I,  he  was  an  honest  man,  and  had  his  virtues. 
If  he  had  any  hypocrisy,  it  was  of  that  inverted  kind,  with  which  a  man  is  not  so 
bad  as  he  seems  to  be,"  And  with  regard  to  future  bliss,  I  cannot  help  imagining  that 
multitudes  of  the  zealously  orthodox  of  different  sects,  who  at  the  last  day  may  flock 
together,  in  hopes  of  seeing  each  other  damned,  will  be  disappointed,  and  obliged  to 
rest  content  with  their  own  salvation." 

In  another  letter,  addressed  to  Mrs.  Mecom,  his  sister,  (1758)  he  says,  "  'Tis  pity 
that  good  works,  among  some  sorts  of  people,  are  so  little  valued,  and  good  words 
admired  in  their  stead  .  I  mean  seemingly  pious  discourses,  instead  of  humane  be- 
nevolent actions.  Those  they  almost  put  out  of  countenance,  by  calling  morality  ratten 
morality — righteousness  ragged  righteousness,  and  even  filthy  rags — and  when  you 
mention  virtue,  pucker  up  their  noses ;  at  the  same  time  that  thej  eagerly  snuff  up  an 
empty  canting  harangue,  as  if  it  was  a  posey  of  the  choicest  flowers." 

In  a  letter  to  *  *  *  (1784)  he  observes,  "  There  are  several  things  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament impossible  to  be  given  by  divine  inspiration  ;  such  as  the  approbation  ascrib- 
ed to  the  angel  of  the  Lord,  of  that  abominably  wicked  and  detestable  action  of  Jael, 
the  wife  of  Heber,  the  Kenite." 


THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 

Extract  of  a  letter  from  THOMAS  JEFFERSON,  President  of  the  United  States, 
to  DR.  PRIESTLEY,  uponMs  "  Comparative  View  of  SOCRATES  and  JESUS." 

WASHINGTON,  APRIL  9,  1803. 
DEAR  SIR, 

While  on  a  short  visit  lately  to  Monticello,  I  received  from  you  a  copy  of  your  Com- 
parative View  of  Socrates  and  Jesus,  and  I  avail  myself  of  the  first  moment  of  leisure 
after  my  return  to  acknowledge  the  pleasure  I  had  in  the  perusal,  and  the  desire 
it  excited  to  see  you  take  up  the  subject  on  a  more  extensive  scale.'— In  consequence 
of  some  conversations  with  Dr.  Rush  in  the  years  1798 — 99,  I  had  promised  some  day 
to  write  him  a  letter,  giving  him  my  view  of  the  Christian  system.  I  have  reflected 
often  on  it  since,  and  even  sketched  the  outlines  in  my  own  mind.  I  should  first  take 
a  general  view  of  the  moral  doctrines  of  the  most  lemarkable  of  the  ancient  philoso- 
phers, of  whose  ethics  we  have  sufficient  information  to  make  an  estimate  :  say,  of 
Pythagoras,  Epicurus,  Epictetus,  Socrates,  Cicero,  Seneca,  Antoninus.  I  should 


10  ,  INTRODUCTION. 

'  .!      * 

do  justice  to  the  branches  of  morality  they  have  treated  well,  but  point  out  the  im* 
jjort'ince  of  those  in  which  they  are  deficient.  I  should  then  take  a  view  of  the  deism 
and  ethics  of  the  Jews,  and  show  in  what  a  degraded  state  they  were,  and  the  ne- 
cessity they  presented  of  a  reformation.  I  should  proceed  to  a  view  of  the  life,  charac- 
ter, and  doctrines  of  Jesus,  who,  sensible  of  the  incorrectness  of  their  ideas  of  the  Deity, 
and  of  morality,  endeavored  to  bring  them  to  die  principles  of  a  pure  deism,  and 
juster  notions  of  the  attributes  of  God,  to  reform  their  moral  doctrines  to  the  stand- 
ard of  reason,  justice,  and  philanthropy,  and  to  inculcate  the  belief  of  a  future  state. 
This  view  would  purposely  omit  the  question  of  his  divinity,  and  even  of  his  inspira- 
tion. To  do  him  justice,  it  would  be  necessary  to  remark  the  disadvantages  his  doc- 
trines have  to  encounter,  not  having  been  committed  to  writing  by  himself,  but  by 
the  most  unlettered  of  men,  by  memory,  long  after  they  had  heard  them  from  him, 
when  much  was  forgotten,  much  misunderstood,  and  presented  in  very  paradoxical 
shapes.  Yet  such  are  the  fragments  remaining,  as  to  show  a  master  workman,  and 
that  his  system  of  morality  was  the  most  benevolent  and  sublime  probably  that  has 
been  ever  taught,  and  more  perfect  than  those  of  any  of  the  ancient  philosophers.  His 
character  and  doctrines  have  received  still  greater  injury  from  those  who  pretend  to 
be  his  spiritual  disciples,  and  who  have  disfigured  and  sophisticated  his  actions  and 
precepts  from  views  of  personal  interest,  so  as  to  induce  the  unthinking  part  of  man- 
kind to  throw  off  the  whole  system  in  disgust,  and  to  pass  sentence  as  an  impostor  on 
the  most  innocent,  the  most  benevolent,  the  most  eloquent  and  sublime  character  that 
has  ever  been  exhibited  to  man.  This  is  the  outline  ;  but  I  have  not  the  time,  and 
still  less  the  information  which  the  subject  needs.  It  will  therefore  rest  with  me  in 
contemplation  only. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON. 


Letter  from  the  same  to  William  Canby. 
SIR, 

I  have  duly  received  your  favor  of  August  27th  ;  am  sensible  of  tlie  kind  intentions 
from  which  it  flows,  and  truly  thankful  for  them,  the  more  so,  as  they  could  only  be 
the  result  of  a  favorable  estimate  of  my  public  course.  During  a  long  life,  as  much 
devoted  to  study  as  a  faithful  transaction  of  the  trusts  committed  to  me  would  permit, 
no  object  has  occupied  more  of  my  consideration  than  our  relations  with  all  the  beings 
around  us,  our  duties  to  them  and  our  future  prospects.  After  hearing  and  reading 
every  thin|  which  probably  can  be  suggested  concerning  them,  I  have  formed  the  best 
judgment  I  -could,  as  to  the  course  they  prescribe ;  and  in  the  due  observance  of  that 
course,  I  have  no  recollections  which  give  me  uneasiness.  An  eloquent  preacher  of 
your  religious  society,  Richard  Mott,  in  a  discourse  of  much  unction  and  pathos,  is 
said  to  have  exclaimed  aloud  to  his  congregation,  that  he  did  not  believe  there  was  a 
Quaker,  Presbyterian,  Methodist  or  Baptist  in  Heaven — having  paused  to  give  his 
audience  time  to  stare  and  to  wonder — (he  said)  that  in  Heaven,  God  knew  no  distinc- 
tion, but  considered  all  good  men,  as  his  children  and  as  brethren  of  the  same  family. 
I  believe  with  the  Quaker  preacher,  that  he  who  steadily  observes  those  moral 
precepts  in  which  all  religions  concur,  will  never  be  questioned  at  the  gates  of  Heav- 
en, as  to  the  dogmas  in  which  they  differ;  that  on  entering  there,  all  these  are  leftl>e- 
hind  us  :  the  Aristideses  and  Catos,  Penns,  and  Tillotsons,  Presbyterians  and  Papists, 
will  find  themselves  united  in  all  principles  which  are  in  concert  with  the  reason  of  the 
supreme  mind.  Of  all  the  systems  of  morality,  ancient  or  modern,  which  have  come 
under  my  observation,  none  appears  to  me  so  pure  as  that  of  Jesus.  He  who  follows 
this  steadily,  need  not,  I  think,  be  uneasy,  although  he  cannot  comprehend  the  subtle- 
ties and  mysteries  erected  on  his  doctrines,  by  those  who  calling  themselves  his  spe- 
cial followers  and  favourites,  would  make  him  come  into  the  world  to  lay  snares  for 
all  understandings  but  theirs  ;  these  metaphysical  heads,  usurping  the  judgment  seat 
of  God,  denounce  as  his  enemies,  all  who  cannot  perceive  the  geometrical  logic  of 
Euclid  in  the  demonstrations  of  St.  Athanasius,  that  three  are  one,  and  one  is  three, 
and  yet  that  three  are  not  one,  nor  the  one  three.  In  all  essential  points,  you  and  I 
are  of  the  same  religion,  and  I  am  too  old  to  go  into  inquiries  and  changes  as  to  the 
unessentials.  Repeating  therefore  my  thankfulness  for  the  kind  concern  you  have 
been  so  good  as  to  express,  I  salute  you  with  friendship  and  brotherly  love. 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON 

Monticello,  September  17th,  1813. 


INTRODUCTION. 
BONAPARTE. 

By  the  Report  of  Las  Casas,  the  authenticity  of  which  is  not  doubted,  Bonaparte, 
who,  whatever  may  be  .thought  of  his  goodness,  is  allowed  by  all  to  be  a  great  man, 
made  the  following  remarks  on  religion.  "  Every  thing  proclaims  the  existence  of  a 
Gcd ;  that  cannot  be  questioned  ;  but  all  religions  are  evidently  the  work  of  men. 
Why  are  there  so  many  1  Why  has  not  ours  always  existed  1  Why  does  itcpnsider 
itself  exclusively  the  right  one  ?  What  becomes,  in  that  case,  of  all  the  virtuous  iiren 
who  have  gone  before  us  1  Why  does  these  religions  oppose  and  exterminate  one 
another  1  Why  has  this  been  the  case  ever  and  every  where  1  Because  men  are  ever 
men ;  because  priests  have  ever  and  every  where  introduced  fraud  and  falsehood." 
He  said,  "  that  his  incredulity  did  not  proceed  from  perverseness  or  from  licentiousness 
of  mind,  but  from  the  strength  of  his  reason.  Yet,"  added  he,  "  no  man  can  an- 
swer for  what  will  happen,  particularly  in  his  last  moments.  At  present,  I  certainly 
believe  that  I  shall  die  without  a  confessor.  I  am  assuredly  very  far  from  being  an 
atheist,  but  I  cannot  believe  all  that  I  am  taught  in  spite  of  my  reason,  without  being 
false  and  a  hypocrite." 

The  bare  mention  of  the  possibility  that  he  might,  before  he  died,  confess  his  sins, 
with  a  view  of  obtaining  pardon  from  a  frail  mortal  like  himself,  was  unworthy  of 
the  character  of  Bonaparte.  But  it  exemplifies  in  the  strongest  manner  the  almost 
unconquerable  pov/er  of  habits  and  prejudices  acquired  in  early  life.  If,  at  the  time 
the  above  expressions  were  made,  there  still  remained  in  the  great  mind  of  Bonaparte 
some  lingering  vestiges  of  the  contemptible  prejudices  which  he  had  imbibed  from  his 
nurse  and  father  confessor  in  childhood,  what  can  be  expected  from  the  multitude 
who  never  think  1  How  important  then  is  it,  that  the  minds  of  youth  should  be  prop- 
erly directed ; — that  they  should  be  taught  their  true  condition  in  nature; — that  their 
present  and  future  happiness  depends,  not  on  confessions  to  a  priest,  but  on  uniform 
practice  of  moral  virtue.  If  confessions  are  depended  on,  we  may  be  assured,  that 
morals  will  be  neglected. 

LORD  ERSKINE. 

The  following  opinion  of  the  manner  in  which  mankind  will  be  judged  in  a  future 
state  must  be  concurred  in  by  every  rational  being,  not  under  clerical  influence.  It  is 
extracted  from  the  speech  of  the  famous  Irish  barrister,  Erskine,  on  the  liberty  of  the 
press,  in  the  trial  of  Stockdale  for  an  alleged  libel  against  the  parliament. 

"  Every  human  tribunal  ought  to  take  care  to  administer  justice,  as  we  look  here- 
after to  have  justice  administered  to  ourselves.  Upon  the  principles  on  which  the 
Attorney-General  prays  sentence  upon  my  client — God  have  mercy  upon  us  ! — For 
which  of  us  can  present,  for  omniscient  examination,  a  pure,  unspotted,  and  faultless 
course.  But  I  humbly  expect  that  the  benevolent  author  of  our  being  will  judge  us 
as  I  have  been  pointing  out  for  your  example.  Holding  up  the  gr^at  volume  of  our 
Jives  in  his  hands,  and  regarding  the  general  scope  of  them.  If  he  discovers  benevo- 
lence, charity  and  good  will  to  man  beating  in  the  heart,  where  he.  alone  can  look ; — 
if  he  finds  that  our  conduct,  though  often  forced  out  of  the  path  by  our  infirmities,  has 
been  in  general  well  directed  ;  his  all-searching  eye  will  assuredly  never  pursue  us 
into  those  tittle  corners  of  our  lives,  much  less  will  his  justice  select  them  for  punish- 
ment, without  the  general  context  of  our  existence,  by  which  faults  may  be  sometimes 
found  to  have  grown  out  of  virtues,  and  very  many  of  our  heaviest  offences  to  have 
been  grafted  by  human  imperfection  upon  the  best  and  kindest  of  our  affections.  No, 
believe  me,  this  is  not  the  course  of  divine  justice.  If  the  general  tenor  of  a  man's 
conduct  be  such  as  I  have  represented  it,  he  may  walk  through  the  shadow  of  death, 
with  all  his  faults  about  him,  with  as  much  cheerfulness  as  in  the  common  paths  of 
life  ;  because  he  knows,  that  instead  of  a  stern  accuser  to  expose  before  the  Author 
of  his  nature  those  frail  passages,  which  like  the  scored  matter  in  the  book  before 
you,  chequers  the  volume  of  the  brightest  and  best  spent  life,  his  mercy  will  obscure 
them  from  the  eye  of  his  purity,  and  our  repentance  blot  them  out  for  ever." 


MR.  OWEN. 

This  gentleman  is  not  so  universally  known  as  to  render  his  opinions  so  imposing 
as  those  already  quoted,  but  he  has   acquired   such   celebrity  for  philanthropy  in 


12  INTRODUCTION. 

his  extraordinary  exertions  to  meliorate  the  condition  of  the  poor,  in  which  charitable 
work  he  is  now  zealously  engaged,  that  I  am  induced  to  give  his  rational  views  re- 
specting religion,  in  answer  to  a  correspondent  of  the  Limerick  Chronicle. 

"  For  nearly  forty  years,"  he  says,  "  I  have  studied  the  religious  systems  of  the 
world,  with  the  most  sincere  desire  to  discover  one  that  was  devoid  of  error  ;  one  to 
which  my  mind  and  soul  could  consent ;  but  the  more  I  have  examined  the  faiths  and 
practices  which  they  have  produced,  the  more  error  in  each  has  been  made  manifest 
to  me,  and  I  am  now  prepared  to  say  that  all,  without  a  single  exception,  contain  too 
much  error  to  be  of  any  utility  in  the  present  advanced  state  of  the  human  mind. 
There  are  truths  in  each  religion,  as  well  as  errors  in  all,  but  if  I  have  not  been  too 
much  prejudiced  by  early  education  and  surrounding  circumstances,  to  judge  impar- 
tially between  them,  there  are  more  valuable  truths  in  the  Christian  Scriptures  than 
in  others — but  a  religion  to  be  pure  and  undefiled,  and  to  produce  the  prooer  effect 
upon  the  life  and  cenduct  of  every  human  being,  and  to  become  universal,  must  be  so 
true,  that  all  who  run  may  read,  and  so  reading  may  fully  comprehend.  A  religion 
of  this  character  must  be  devoid  of  forms,  ceremonies  and  mysteries,  for  these  con- 
stitute the  errors  of  all  the  existing  systems,  and  of  all  those  which  have  hitherto  cre- 
ated anger,  and  produced  violence  and  bloodshed  throughout  society.  A  religion  de- 
void of  error  will  not  depend  for  its  support  upon  any  name  whatever.  No  name, 
not  even  Deity  itself,  cun  make  truth  into  falsehood. — A  pure  and  genuine  religion, 
therefore,  will  not  require  for  its  support,  or  for  its  universal  promulgation  by  the 
human  race,  any  name  whatever,  nor  ought,  except  the  irresistible  truth  which  it 
shall  contain.  Such  religion  will  possess  whatever  is  valuable  in  each,  and  exclude 
whatever  is  erroneous  in  all,  and  in  due  time,  a  religion  of  this  character,  freed  from 
every  inconsistency,  shall  be  promulgated.  Then  will  the  world  be  in  possession  of 
principles  which,  without  any  exception,  produce  corresponding  practices,  then  all 
shall  see,  face  to  face,  clearly  and  distinctly,  and  no  longer  through  a  glass,  darkly. 
In  the  mean  time,  however,  while  the  dangers  shall  be  gradually  working  in  the 
minds  of  those  who  have  been  compelled  to  receive  error  mixed  with  truth,  it  is  in- 
tended that  no  violence  shall  be  offered  to  the  conscience  of  any  one,  and  that  in  the 
proposed  new  villages,  full  provisions  shall  be  made  for  the  performance  of  religious 
worship,  according  to  the  practice  of  the  country  in  which  the  villages  shall  be  situated. 


ELIAS  HICKS. 

Elias  Hicks,  a  celebrated  Quaker  preacher,  at  New-York,  in  a  letter  addressed  to 
the  Rev.  Dr.  Shoemaker,  dated  3d  mo.  31,  1823,  speaking  of  the  atonement,  and 
those  who  believe  in  it,  writes, "  Surely,  is  it  possible  that  any  rational  being,  that 
has  any  right  sense  of  justice  and  mercy,  would  be  willing  to  accept  forgiveness  of  his 
sins  on  such  terms  ?  Would  he  not  go  forward,  and  offer  himself  wholly  up,  to  suffer 
all  the  penalties  due  to  his  crimes,  rather  than  the  innocent  should  suffer  7  Nay,  was 
he  so  hardy  as  to  acknowledge  a  willingness  to  be  saved  through  such  a  medium, 
would  it  not  prove  that  he  stood  in  direct  opposition  to  every  principle  of  justice  and 
honesty,  of  mercy  and  love,  and  show  himself  a  poor  selfish  creature,  unworthy  of 
notice  1"  Towards  the  conclusion  of  his  letter,  he  says,  "  I  may  now  recommend 
thee  to  shake  off  all  traditional  views  that  thou  hast  imbibed  from  external  evidence, 
and  turn  thy  mind  to  the  light  within,  as  the  only  true  teacher  ;  and  wait  patiently 
for  its  instructions,  and  it  will  teach  thee  more  than  men  or  books  can  do,  and  lead 
thee  to  a  clearer  sight  and  sense  of  what  thou  desirest  to  know,  than  I  have  words 
clearly  to  convey  to  thee." 

In  his  discourses  the  following  sentiments  have  been  noted  and  published  ;  "  That  the 
death  of  Jesus  Christ  was  no  more  to  us  than  the  death  of  any  other  good  man  ; 
that  he  merely  performed  his  part  on  earth  as  a  faithful  son,  just  as  any  other  man 
had  done ;  that  he  did  not  believe  any  thing  contained  in  the  Scriptures  merely  be- 
cause it  was  in  them ;  that  although  the  miracles  might  have  been  a  proof  to  those 
who  saw  them,  yet  they  could  be  no  proof  to  us  who  did  not  see  them.  Is  it  possible, 
•aid  he,  that  there  is  any  person  so  ignorant  or  superstitious,  as  to  believe,  that  there 
ever  was  on  earth  such  a  place  as  the  garden  of  Eden,  or  that  Adam  and  Eve  were 
really  put  into  it,  and  turned  out  of  it  for  eating  an  apple  1  My  friends,  it  is  all  an 
allegory." 

Mr.  Hicks,  I  understand,  is  far  advanced  in  life,  and  is  a  great  favourite,  as  a 
preacher,  not  only  among  his  own  -sect,  but  with  others  of  different  denominations 


INTRODUCTION. 

He  is  said  to  be  a  man  of  the  strictest  morals.  His  doctrine  is  void  of  trifling  pueril- 
ities, and  disgusting  hypocrisy,  the  greatest  impediment  to  human  improvement.  It 
is  plain,  honest,  common  sense.  Such  as  one  would  suppose  would  be  adoiDted  by  all 
people,  not  burdened  with  an  expensive  priesthood. — Hired  priests,  no  doubt,  consid- 
er themselves  in  a  measure  bound  to  deal  out  to  their  hearers  a  great  deal  of  school 
divinity,  consisting  of  perplexing  metaphysics,  in  order  to  convince  them  that  they 
get  the  worth  of  their  money.  Plain  morality  would  not  command  a£gh  price 
among  those  who  are  in  search  of  mysteries,  miracles  and  spiritual  nonentities. 

Religionists  seem  to  think  that  there  can  be  no  religion  unattended  with  mystery 
and  miracle.  They  require  a  name  to  uphold  their  religion  ;  and  the  person  who 
bears  it  mnst  have  performed  miracles  to  entitle  him  to  their  respect.  The  simple 
principles  of  moral  virtue  have  no  charms  for  them.  Their  religion  must  be  involved 
in  clouds  and  darkness,  to  make  it  difficult  to  be  understood,  in  order  to  enhance  the 
merit  of  believing  it.  Such  a  scheme,  as  they  call  it,  of  religion  is  well  adapted  to 
priestcraft,  because  it  gives  the  high  priests  of  the  establishment  an  opportunity  to 
play  off  a  sort  of  necromancy  to  deceive  and  gull  the  Tnultitude.  It  would  require  no 
ministers,  with  high  salaries,  to  explain  the  plain  creed  of  Dr.  Franklin.  It  does 
not  require,  like  complicated  and  mysterious  religions  to  be  taught,  as  a  school  boy  is 
taught  grammar. 

The  morality  contained  in  what  is  called  the  gospel,  unconnected  with  the  Old 
Testament,  is  unexceptionable.  Ic  is  the  doctrine  of  Deism ;  as  Dr.  Tindal  has 
shown,  in  his  work,  entitled,  "  Christianity  as  old  as  the  Creation,  or  the  Gospel  a 
republication  of  the  religion  of  nature."  The  same  sentiments,  however,  had  been 
promulgated  long  before  the  gospel  had  existence.  CONFUCIUS,  the  Chinese  phloso- 
pher,  who  was  born  551  years  before  Christ,  said,  "  Human  nature  came  to  us  from 
heaven  pure  and  perfect;  but  in  process  of  time,  ignorance,  the  passions,  and  evil 
examples  have  corrupted  it. — All  consists  in  restoring  it  to  its  primitive  beauty  ;  and 
to  be  perfect,  we  must  reasccnd  to  that  point  we  have  fallen  from.  Obey  heaven,  and 
follow  the  orders  of  Him  who  governs  it.  Love  your  neighbour  as  yourself;  let  your 
reason,  and  not  your  senses  be  the  rule  of  your  conduct ;  for  reason  will  teach  you  to 
think  wisely,  to  speak  prudently,  and  to  behave  yourself  worthily  on  all  occasions. 
Do  to  another  what  you  would  he  should  do  unto  you  ;  and  do  not  unto  another  what 
you  would  should  not  be  done  unto  you  ;  thou  only  needest  this  law  alone  ;  it  is  the 
foundation  and  principle  of  all  tne  rest. 

"  Desire  not  die  death  of  thine  enemy ;  thou  woulflst  desire  it  in  vain  ;  his  life  is 
in  the  hands  of  Heaven. 

"  Acknowledge  thy  benefits  by  the  return  of  other  benefits,  but  never  revenge  in- 
juries." 

In  the  precepts  of  PHOCYLIDES,  written  540  years  before  Christ,  we  find  the 
following  :  "  Let  no  favour  or  affection  bias  thy  judgment ;  reject  not  the  poor;  nor 
judge  any  man  rashly  ;  for  if  thou  doest,  God  will  judge  thee  hereafter." 

"  Give  not  thy  alms  to  the  poor  with  grudging,  nor  put  him  off  till  to-morrow ; 
have  compassion  on  the  man  that  is  banished,  and  be  eyes  to  the  blind." 

"  Show  mercy  to  those  that  are  shipwrecked  ;  for  the  sea,  like  fortune,  is  a  fair, 
but  fickle  mistress.  Comfort  the  man  that  is  dejected  ;  and  be  a  friend  to  him  that 
has  no  one  to  help  him.  We  are  all  liable  to  misfortunes,  up  to  day,  and  down  to- 
morrow-." 

In  what  are  called  the  Golden  Verses  of  PYTHAGORAS,  who  died  497  years  be- 
fore Christ,  we  read  as  follows,  "  Do  not  an  ill  thing,  either  in  company,  or  alone  ; 
but  of  all  respect  yourself  first ;  that  is,  first  pay  the  duty  which  is  due  to  yourself,  to 
your  honour  and  to  your  conscience  ;  nor  let  any  foreign  regard  make  you  deviate 
from  this  faith." 

"  Presume  not  to  sleep  till  you  have  thrice  ran  over  the  actions  of  the  past  day. 
Examine  yourself,  where  have  I  been  1  What  have  I  done  1  Have  I  omitted  any 
good  action  1  Then  weigh  all,  and  correct  yourself  for  what  you  have  done  amiss, 
and  rejoice  in  what  you  have  done  well." 

*'  Whatever  evils  thou  mayest  undergo,  bear  them  patiently,  endeavoring  to  discov- 
er a  remedy.  And  let  this  reflection  console  thee,  that  fate  docs  not  distribute  much 
of  evil  to  good  men. 

"  Men  apply  the  art  of  reasoning  to  good  and  bad  purposes ;  listen,  therefore,  with 
caution,  and  be  not  hasty  to  admit  or  reject.  If  any  one  assert  an  untruth,  arm  thy- 
self with  patience,  and  be  silent. 

"  When  this  habit  has  become  familiar  to  thee,  thou  wilt  perceive  the  constitution 
of  the  immortal  Gods,  and  of  mortal  men ;  even  the  great  extent  of  being,  and  in 


14  INTRODUCTION. 

what  manner  it  exists.  Thou  wilt  perceive  that  nature  in  her  operations  is  uniform*, 
and  thou  will  expect  only  what  is  possible.  Thou  wilt  perceive  that  mankind  will- 
ingly draw  upon  themselves  evil.  They  neither  see  nor  understand  what  it  is  wise 
to  prefer  ;  and  \vhen  entangled,  are  ignorant  of  the  means  of  escape.  Such  is  the 
destiny  of  man.  They  are  subjected  to  evils  without  end,  and  are  agitated  incessant- 
ly, like  rolling  stones.  A  fatal  contention  ever  secretly  pursues  them,  which  thev 
neither  eflleavor  to  subdue,  nor  yield  to 

"  Great  Jove  !  Father  of  Men  !  O  free  them  from  those  evils,  or  discover  to  them 
the  demon  they  employ  !  But  be  of  good  cheer,  for  the  race  of  man  is  divine.  Na- 
ture discovers  to  them  her  hidden  mysteries,  in  which  if  thou  art  interested,  and  at- 
tain this  knowledge,  thou  wilt  obtain  with  ease,  all  I  enjoin  ;  and  having  healed  thy 
soul,  thou  wilt  preserve  it  from  evil. 

"  Abstain,  moreover,  from  those  unclean  and  foul  meats,  which  are  forbidden, 
keeping  thy  body  pure,  and  thy  soul  free. 

"  Consider  all  things  well,  governing  thyself  by  reason,  and  settling  it  in  the  up- 
permost place.  And  when  then,  or£  divested  of  thy  mortal  body,  and  arrived  in 
the  most  pure  tether,  thou  shalt  be  exalted  among  the  immortal  Gods,  be  incor- 
ruptible, and  never  more  know  death." 

Laurence  Sterne,  in  his  Coran,  says,  "  I  had  conceived,  that  to  love  our  enemies 
was  a  tenet  peculiar  to  the  Christian  religion,  till  I  stumbled  upon  the  same  idea  in 
the  writings  of  that  rogue  Plato."  And  it  seems  tlmt  the  rogue  Pythagoras,  as  well 
as  Plato  and  others,  taught  the  doctrine  of  immortality  long  before  its  promulgation 
in  the  gospel,  although  the  merit  of  it  is  ascribed  exclusively  to  Jesus  by  many  of  his 
followers. 

Quotations  to  the  same  effect  might  be  made  from  the  writings  of  Socrates,  Plato, 
Cicero,  and  others,  who  lived  anterior  to  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ.  In  fact,  it  seems 
apparent,  that  the  moral  sentiments  contained  in  the  gospel,  have  been  derived  from 
philosophers  who  lived  at  periods  remote  from  the  time  of  its  promulgation.  The 
morals  of  Epictetus,  Seneca,  and  Antoninus,  whom  Christians  call  heathens,  are  not 
inferior  to  those  of  the  gospel.  ANTONINUS  observes,  "  It  is  the  peculiar  excellence 
of  man  to  love  even  those  who  have  offended  him.  This  you  will  be  disposed  to  do, 
if  you  reflect  that  the  offender  is  allied  to  you  ;  that  he  did  it  through  ignorance,  and, 
perhaps  involuntarily  ;  and,  moreover,  that  you  will  both  soon  go  peaceably  to  your 
graves.  But  above  all,  consider,  that  he  has  not  really  injured  you,  as  he  could  not 
render  your  mind,  or  governing  part,  the  worse  for  his  offence. 

"  A  man  may  be  more  expert  than  you  in  the  gymnastic  exercises ;  be  it  so  ;  yet  he 
is  not  superior  to  you  in  the  social  virtues,  in  generosity,  in  modesty,  in  patience  under 
the  accidents  of  life,  or  lenity  towards  the  foibles  of  mankind." 

Moral  principles  are  the  same  in  all  countries,  and  at  all  times.  Neither  time  nor 
place  can  change  them. 

Although  sects  were  formed  under  the  names  of  some  of  the  ancient  philosophers, 
which  caused  great  disputations  among  the  disciples  of  the  respective  leaders,  it  does 
not  appear  that  they  were  carried  on  with  such  rancor  towards  each  other,  as  those 
which  have  distinguished  the  followers  of  men  who  have  given  names  to  various  de- 
nominations of  Christians.  Among  these,  at  least,  reason  has  been  perverted  by  a 
blind  zeal  to  support  the  favourite  dogmas  of  spiritual  guides,  and  Christendom  has 
been  kept  in  turmoil,  for  1800  years,  by  the  ranglings  and  persecutions  of  sectarians. 
When  philosophers  speak  favourably  of  the  morality  of  the  gospel,  they  are  far 
from  vindicating  the  cruelties  committed  in  the  name  of  its  founder,  or  the  arrogant 
pretensions  of  its  ministers.  In  fact,  they  evidently  do  it  as  a  salvo  against  persecu- 
tion for  their  unbelief  in  its  divinity,  and  their  disapprobation  of  the  vindictive  spirit 
of  its  supporters. 

The  following  are  the  only  books  of  note  which  are  esteemed  by  the  various  nations 
of  the  earth  as  of  divine  origin. 

Shu-King,  or  sacred  book,  of  the  Chinese. 
Yajur  Veda,  or  holy  book,  of  the  East  Indians. 
Bible  of  the  Christians,  and  Koran  of  the  Mahometans. 

Which  of  these  contain  the  best  or  most  practical  system  of  morals  it  might  be  dif- 
ficult to  determine.  But,  as  the  cause  of  cruelties  in  the  destruction  of  the  human 
species,  I  will  venture  to  say,  that  the  Bible  stands  pre-eminent  and  unrivalled.  Mil- 
lions have  been  sacrificed,  under  both  the  Jewish  and  Christian  economy,  with  the 
false  and  wicked  pretext  of  honouring  the  Deity  by  the  inforcement  of  ridiculous  creeds, 
rights  and  ceremonies.  In  the  trifling  and  foolish  affair  of  the  molten  calf  alone,  as 
recorded  in  the  32d  chap,  of  Exodus,  about  three  thousand  men  are  said  to  have  been 


INTRODUCTION.  15 

pat  to  death  to  appease  the  pretended  jealousy  of  the  Supreme  Creator  of  the  Uni- 
verse. This,  and  hundreds  of  other  passages  that  might  be  cited  from  the  Bible,  form 
a  striking  contrast  with  that  tolerant  spirit  of  the  Koran,  in  which  it  is  said,  "  If  God 
had  pleased,  he  had  surely  made  you  one  people  ;  but  he  hath  thought  fit  to  give  you 
different  laws,  that  he  might  try  you  in  that  which  he  hath  given  you  respectively. 
Therefore  strive  to  excel  each  other  in  good  works ;  unto  God  shall  you  all  return, 
and  then  will  he  declare  unto  you  that  concerning  which  ye  have  differed." — Koran, 
chap.  5. 

I  will  here  insert  a  concise  history  of  occurrences  under  the  gospel  dispensation  in 
Spain,  as  a  sample  of  what  has,  and  ever  will  take  place,  wherever  ministers  of  re- 
ligion bear  sway  in  government.  This  I  take  from  a  statement,  which  has  recently 
appeared,  of  the  number  of  victims  to  that  terrible  engine  of  superstition,  cruelty  and 
death,  the  Inquisition  ;  the  bare  recital  of  which  chills  the  blood,  and  fills  the  mind 
with  horrid  images  of  suffering  humanity  under  the  most  excrutiating  tortures,  which 
awful  depravity,  disguised  in  the  robes  of  religion,  could  invent.  The  table  is  ex- 
tracted from  a  Critical  History  of  that  dreadful  tribunal,  by  J.  A.  Lorente,  one  of  its 
late  secretaries,  and  may  therefore  be  considered  as  indisputably  authentic.  It  ex- 
hibits a  detailed  list  of  the  respective  numbers  who  have  suffered  various  kinds  of 
punishment  and  persecution  in  the  Peninsula  alone,  independent  of  those  who  have 
been  its  victims  in  other  parts  of  the  world,  for  a  period  of  356  years,  viz.  from  1452 
to  1808,  during  which  the  Inquisition  has  existed,  under  the  administration  of  44  In- 
quisitors General.  Within  that  term  it  appears  that  in  Spain  have  been  burnt  31,718, 
died  in  prison  or  escaped  by  flight  and  were  burnt  in  effigy,  174,111,.  and  suffered 
other  punishments,  such  as  whipping,  imprisonment,  &c.  287,522,  making  a  grand 
total  of  336,651.  The  greatest  number  of  victims  under  any  administration,  was  in 
that  of  Torquemada,  the  first  Inquistor  General,  who  presided  from  1452  to  1499,  a 
.ong  and  bloody  reign  of  47  years,  during  which  8,800  victims  were  burnt,  6,400  died 
or  escaped  by  flight,  and  90,094  suffered  various  other  punishments ;  being  in  the 
whole,  105,294,  or  2,240  per  annum  ! 

The  use  of  this  horrid  instrument  of  slaughter  was  abolished  by  the  Cortes  ;  but  is 
about  to  be  reinstated  under  the  rule  of  the  heaven-born  Ferdinand.  The  consequen- 
ces of  which  mav  be  anticipated  by  the  tenor  of  the  following  Decree,  issued  at  Mad- 
rid, Oct.  13,  1823. 

**  In  casting  my  eyes  (says  his  Majesty)  on  the  Most  High  who  had  'deigned  to 
deliver  me  from  so  many  dangers,  and  to  lead  me  back  as  it  were  by  the  hand  among 
my  faithful  subjects,  I  experience  a  feeling  of  horror  when  I  recollect  all  the  sacrifices, 
all  the  crimes  which  the  impious  have  dared  to  commit  against  the  Sovereign  Creator 
of  the  Universe. 

"The  Ministers  of  Religion  have  been  persecuted  and  sacrificed — the  venerable 
successor  of  St.  Peter  has  been  insulted — the  temples  of  the  Lord  profaned  and  des- 
troyed— the  Holy  Gospel  trodden  under  foot — lastly,  the  inestimable  inheritance 
which  Jesus  Christ  left  us,  the  right  of  his  Holy  Supper,  to  assure  us  of  his  love,  and 
of  our  eternal  felicity,  the  sacred  Hosts,  have  been  trampled  under  foot.  My  soul 
cannot  be  at  rest  till  united  to  my  beloved  subjects,  we  shall  offer  to  God  pious  sac- 
rifices that  he  may  deign  to  purify  by  his  grace  the  soil  of  Spain  from  so  many  stains. 
In  order  that  objects  of  such  importance  should  be  attained,  I  have  resolved  that  in  all 
places  in  my  dominion,  the  tribunals,  the  Juntas,  and  all  public  bodies,  shall  implore 
the  clemency  of  the  Almighty  in  favour  of  the  nation,  and  that  the  Archbishops,  Bish- 
ops and  Capitular  Vicars  of  vacant  Sees,  the  Priors  of  Orders,  and  all  those  who  ex- 
ercise ecclesiastical  jurisdiction,  shall  prepare  missions,  which  shall  exert  themselves 
to  destroy  erroneous,  pernicious,  and  heretical  doctrines,  and  shut  up  in  the  monaster- 
ies, of  which  the  rules  are  the  most  rigid,  those  ecclesiastics,  who  have  been  the  agents 
of  an  impious  faction. 

"  Sealed  by  my  Royal  hand  !" 

A  Royal  hand  bathed  in  blood ;  the  witness  of  innumerable  perjuries. — TJte  pious 
sacrifices  to  be  offered  to  God  are  human  victims  :  the  best  blood  of  Spain — Riego, 
&c.  Good  heavens  !  is  it  possible  that  the  enlightened  reason  of  man  will  long  sub- 
mit to  be  imposed  upon  by  the  canting  of  such  vile,  infamous  wretches  as  Ferdinand 
the  Seventh  1 

In  the  opinion  of  such  blotches  on  the  human  character,  the  belief  in  mysteries  and 
miracles,  and  the  performance  of  the  idle  ceremonies  ordained  by  the  Church,  are 
sufficient  to  atone  for  all  sins,  and  that  morals,  in  comparison,  are  of  no  value. 


16  INTRODUCTION. 

Christianity,  as  taught  and  practised  by  theologians  and  their  adherents,  is  so  ac- 
curately described  in  a  letter  on  superstition,  addressed  to  the  people  of  England,  by 
the  celebrated  William  Pitt,  (afterwards  Earl  of  Chatham,  and  Prime  Minister  of 
Great  Britain,)  that  I  am  induced  to  give  it  entire.  It  was  first  printed  in  the  Lon- 
don Jouwal  in  1733. 

LETTER  OF  WILLIAM  PITT. 

"  Pure  Religion  and  undefilcd  before  God  and  the  Father,  is  this  :  to  visit  the 
Fatherless  and  Widows  in  their  afflictions,  and  to  keep  one's  self  unspotted  from 
the  World." 

Gentlemen,  whoever  takes  a  view  of  the  world,  will  find,  that  what  the  greatest 
part  of  mankind  have  agreed  to  call  religion,  has  been  only  some  outward  exercise 
esteemed  sufficient  to  work  a  reconciliation  with  God.  It  has  moved  them  to  build 
temples,  flay  victims,  offer  up  sacrifices,  to  fast  and  feast,  to  petition  and  thank,  to 
laugh  and  cry,  to  sing  and  sigh  by  turns  ;  but  it  has  not  yet  been  found  sufficient  to 
induce  them  to  break  off  an  armour,  to  :rauke  restitution  of  ill-gotten  wealth,  or  to 
bring  the  passions  and  appetites  to  a  reasonable  subjection.  Differ  as  much  as  they 
may  in  opinion,  concerning  what  they  ought  to  believe,  or  after  what  manner  they 
are  to  serve  God,  as  they  call  it,  yet  they  all  agree  in  gratifying  their  appetites.  The 
same  passions  reign  eternally  in  all  countries  and  in  all  ages,  Jew  and  Mahometan, 
the  Christian  and  the  Pagan,  the  Tartar  and  the  Indian,  all  kinds  of  men  who  differ 
in  almost  every  tiling  else,  universally  agree  with  regard  to  their  passions;  if  there 
be  any  difference  among  them  it  is  this,  that  the  more  superstitious,  the  more  vicious 
they  always  are,  and  the  more  they  believe,  the  less  they  practise.  This  is  a  mel- 
ancholy consideration  to  a  good  mind ;  it  is  a  truth,  and  certainly  above  all  things, 
worth  our  while  to  inquire  into.  We  will,  therefore,  probe  the  wound,  and  search  to 
the  bottom ;  we  will  lay  the  axe  to  the  root  of  the  tree,  and  show  you  the  true  reason 
why  men  go  on  in  sinning  and  repenting,  and  sinning  again  through  the  whole  course 
of  their  lives  ;  and  the  reason  is,  because  they  have  been  taught,  most  wickedly  taught, 
that  religion  and  virtue  are  two  things  absolutely  distinct ;  that  the  deficiency  of  the" 
one,  might  be  supplied  by  -the  sufficiency  of  the  other ;  and  that  what  you  want  in 
virtue,  you  must  make  up  in  religion.  But  this  religion,  so  dishonourable  to  God, 
and  so  pernicious  to  men,  is  worse  than  Atheism,  for  Atheism,  though  it  takes  away 
one  great  motive  to  support  virtue  in  distress,  yet  it  furnishes  no  man  with  arguments 
to  be  vicious  ;  but  superstition,  or  what  the  world  means  by  religion  is  the  greatest 
possible  encouragement  to  vice?  by  setting  up  something  as  religion,  which  shall  atone 
and  commute  for  the  want  of  virtue.  This  is  establishing  iniquity  by  a  law,  the  high- 
est law  ;  by  authority,  the  highest  authority  ;  that  of  God  himself.  We  complain  of 
the  vices  of  the  world,  and  of  the  wickedness  of  men,  without  searching  into  the  true 
cause.  It  is  not  because  they  are  wicked  by  nature,  for  that  is  both  false  and  im- 
pious ;  but  because  to  serve  the  purposes  of  their  pretended  soul  savers,  they  have 
been  carefully  taught  that  they  are  wicked  by  nature,  and  cannot  help  continuing  so. 
It  would  have  been  impossible  for  men  to  have  been  both  religious  and  vicious,  had 
religion  been  made  to  consist  wherein  alone  it  does  consist ;  and  had  they  been  al- 
ways taught  that  true  religion  is  the  practice  of  virtue  in  obedience  to  the  will  of  God, 
who  presides  over  all  things,  and  will  finally  make  every  man  happy  who  does  his 
duty. 

^  This  single  opinion  in  religion,  that  all  things  are  so  well  made  by  the  Deity,  that 
virtue  is  its  own  reward,  and  that  happiness  will  ever  arise  from  acting  according  to 
the  reason  of  things,  or  that  God,  ever  wise  and  good,  will  provide  some  extraordi- 
nary happiness  for  those  who  suffer  for  virtue's  sake,  is  enough  to  support  a  man  un- 
der all  difficulties-,  to  keep  him  steady  to  his  duty,  and  to  enable  him  to  stand  as  firm  as 
a  rock,  amidst  all  the  charms  of  applause,  profit,  and  honour.  But  this  religion  of 
reason,  which  all  men  are  capable  of,  has  been  neglected  and  condemned,  and  another 
set  up,  the  natural  consequences  of  which  have  puzzled  men's  understandings,  and  de- 
bauched their  morals,  more  than  all  the  lewd  poets  and  atheistical  philosophers,  that 
ever  infested  the  world ;  for  instead  of  being  taught  that  religion  consists  in  action, 
or  obedience  to  the  eternal  moral  law  of  God,  we  have  been  most  gravely  and  vener- 
ably told  that  it  consists  in  the  belief  of  certain  opinions  which  we  could  form  no  idea 
of,  or  which  were  contrary  to  the  clear  perceptions  of  our  minds,  or  which  had  no 
tendency  to  make  us  either  wiser  or  better,  or  which  is  much  worse,  had  a  manifest 
tendency  to  make  us  wicked  and  immoral.  And  this  belief,  this  impious  belief,  aria- 


INTRODUCTION.  s? 

ing  from  imposition  on  one  side,  and  from  want  of  examination  on  the  other,  has  been 
called  by  the  sacred  name  of  religion,  whereas  real  and  genuine  religion  consists  in 
knowledge  and  obedience.  We  know  there  is  a  God,  and  know  his  will,  which  is, 
that  we  should  do  all  the  good  we  can ;  and  we  are  assured  from  his  perfections,  that 
we  shall  find  our  own  good  in  so  doing. 

And  what  would  we  have  more  1  are  we,  after  such  inquiry,  and  in  an  age  full  of 
liberty,  children  still  ?  and  cannot  we  be  quiet  unless  we  have  holy  romances,  sacred 
fables",  and  traditionary  tales  to  amuse  us  in  an  idle  hour,  and  to  give  rest  to  our 
eouls,  when  our  follies  and  vices  will  not  suffer  us  to  rest  1 

You  have  been  taught,  indeed,  that  right  belief,  or  orthodoxy,  will,  like  charity, 
cover  a  multitude  of  sins  ;  but  be  not  deceived,  belief  of,  or  mere  assent  to  the  truth 
of  propositions  upon  evidence  is  not  a  virtue,  nor  unbelief  a  vice  ;  faith  is  not  a  volun- 
tary act,  does  not  depend  upon  the  will;  every  man  must  believe  or  disbelieve, 
whether  he  will  or  not,  according  as  the  evidence  appears  to  him.  If,  therefore, 
men,  however  dignified  or  distinguished,  command  us  to  believe,  they  are  guilty  of 
the  highest  folly  and  absurdity,  because  it  is  out  of  our  power;  but  if  they  command 
Us  to  believe,  and  annex  rewards  to  belief,  and  severe  penalties  to  unbelief,  then  they 
are  most  wicked  and  immoral,  because  they  annex  rewards  and  punishments  to  what 
is  involuntary,  and,  therefore,  neither  rewardable  nor  punishable.  It  appears,  then, 
very  plainly  unreasonable  and  unjust  to  command  us  to  believe  any  doctrine,  good  or 
bad,  wise  or  unwise  ;  but,  when  men  command  us  to  believe  opinions,  which  have  no 
tendency  to  promote  virtue,  but  which  are  allowed  to  commute  or  atone  for  the  want 
of  it,  then  they  are  arrived  at  the  utmost  pitch  of  impiety,  then  is  their  iniquity  full ; 
then  have  they  finished  the  misery,  and  completed  the  destruction  of  poor  mortal  man  ; 
by  betraying  the  interest  of  virtue,  they  have  undermined  and  sapped  the  foundation 
of  all  human  happiness  ;  and  how  treacherously  and  dreadfully  have  they  betrayed  it! 
A  gift,  well  applied,  the  chattering  of  some  unintelligible  sounds  calletl  creeds  ;  an 
unfeigned  assent  and  consent  to  whatever  the  church  enjoins,  religious  worship  and 
consecrated  feasts  ;  repenting  on  a  death-bed  ;  pardons  rightly  sued  out ;  and  abso- 
lution authoritatively  given,  have  done  more  towards  making  and  continuing  men  vi- 
cious, than  all  the  natural  passions  and  infidelity  put  together ;  for  infidelity  can  only- 
take  away  the  supernatural  rewards  of  virtue  ;  but  these  superstitious  opinions  and 
practices, 'have  not  only  turned  the  scene,  and  made  men  lose  sight  of  the  natural  re- 
wards of  it,  but  have  induced  them  to  think,  that  were  there  no  hereafter,  vice  would 
be  preferable  to  virtue,  and  that  they  increase  in  happiness  as  they  increase  in  wick- 
edness ;  and  this  they  have  been  taught  in  several  religious  discourses  and  sermons, 
delivered  by  men  whose  authority  was  never  doubted,  particularly  by  a  late  Rev. 
prelate,  I  mean  Bishop  Atterbury,  in  his  sermon  on  these  words,  "  If  in  this  life  only 
be  hope,  then  we  are  of  all  men  the  most  miserable,"  where  vice  and  faith  ride  most 
lovingly  and  triumphantly  together.  But  those  doctrines  of  the  natural  excellency  of 
vice,  the  efficacy  of  a  right  belief,  the  dignity  of  atonements  and  propitiations,  have 
beside  depriving  us  of  the  native  beauty  and  charms  of  honesty,  and  thus  cruelly  stab- 
bing virtue  to  the  heart,  raised  and  diffused  among  men  a  certain  unnatural  passion, 
which  we  shall  call  a  religious  hatred  ;  a  hatred  constant,  deep-rooted,  and  immortal. 
All  other  passions  rise  and  fall,  die  and  revive  again,  but  this  of  religious  and  pious 
hatred  rises  and  grows  everv  day  stronger  upon  the  mind  as  we  grow  more  religions, 
because  we  hate  for  God's  sake,"and  for  the  sake  of  those  poor  souls  too,  who  have 
the  misfortune  not  to  believe  as  we  do  ;  and  can  we  in  so  good  a  cause  hate  too  much  ? 
the  more  thoroughly  we  hate,  the  better  we  are  ;  and  the  more  mischief  we  do  to  the 
bodies  and  states  of  these  infidels  and  heretics,  the  more  do  we  show  our  love  to  God. 
This  is  religious  zeal,  and  this  has  been  called  divinity  ;  but  remember,  the  only  true 
divinity  is  humanity. 

W.  PITT. 


Against  such  a  scheme  of  fraud  and  imposition,  as  faithfully  delineated  by  Mr.  Pitt, 
has  Thomas  Paine  entered  his  protest ;  and  those  who  make  a  tr^de  of  the  delusion, 
a«  well  as  those  who  are  duped  by  it,  denounce  him  as  an  impious  man  !  And  he, 
in  reply,  might  have  exclaimed,  in  the  language  of  Lequinto,  before  cited. 

"  I  am  an  impious  man,  my  dear  reader ;  and  I  tell  the  truth  to  every  man,  which  is 
perhaps  still  worse.  Four  years  are  scarcely  elapsed,  since  the  follies  of  the  Sorbonno, 
and  the  furies  of  despotism,  might  have  raised  a  btorm,  which  would  have  burst  upon 
my  head  ;  they  would  have  smitten  me.  like  a  destructive  monster,  an  a^assin  of 
the  human  race,  a  perturbator,  a  traitor.  Each  of  those  colossal  phantoms, has  dis>- 


IS  INTRODUCTION. 

appeared  before  the  eye  of  reason,  and  the  august  image  of  liberty  ;  however,  an  in- 
finite number  of  prejudices,  personal  interest,  and  hypocrisy,  all  of  them  no  less  the  ty- 
rants, and  the  enemies  of  knowledge,  still  dwell  among  us. 

There  still  remains  at  the  bottom  of  thy  heart,  at  the  bottom  of  thy  own  heart,  the 
prejudices  of  thy  infancy,  the  lessons  of  thy  nurse,  and  the  opinions  of  thy  first  in- 
structors, which  are  the  effects  of  that  renunciation  of  thought  which  thou  hast  prac- 
tised all  the  days  of  thy  life,  from  the  cradle  upwards  !  In  addition  to  this,  it  is  the 
interest  of  every  one  to  keep  thee  in  total  blindness.  The  rich  and  powerful  man 
dreads  lest  thou  shouldst  open  thy  eyes,  and  perceive  that  his  strength  and  grandeur 
proceed  from  thy  ignorance  and  submission.  The  vain  man,  with  equality  in  his 
heart,  fears  lest  thou  shouldst  discover  the  absurdity  of  his  pretensions  to  superiority  ; 
the  hypocrite,  who  terms  himself  the  representative  of  the  divinity,  and  the  messenger 
of  heaven,  trembles  lest  thou  shouldst  begin  to  reflect,  for,  from  that  moment  his  credit 
and  his  authority  are  at  an  end.  He  eats  and  drinks  at  his  leisure ;  he  sleeps  with- 
out care ;  he  walks  about  in  order  to  procure  an  appetite ;  he  enjoys  the  price  of 
thy  labours  in  peace ;  thou  payest  for  his  pleasures,  his  subsistence,  and  even  for  his 
sleep.  But,  wert  thou  to  begin  to  reason,  thou  wouldst  soon  perceive  thy  error  ;  thou 
wouldst  touch  the  phantom,  and  it  would  instantly  vanish  ;  thou  wouldst  discover  that 
he  is  an  useless  parasite,  and  that  all  his  authority  reposes  on  thy  foolish  credulity, 
thy  weakness,  thy  chimerical  fears,  and  the  ridiculous  hopes  which  he  has  taken  care 
to  inspire  thee  with,  ever  since  thou  earnest  into  existence.  Perhaps  thy  very  wife  is 
interested  to  deceive  thee,  on  purpose  to  sanctify  her  connexions  with  the  representa- 
tive of  the  divinity,  who  renounces  the  holy  laws  of  nature,  because  he  spares  himself, 
at  one  and  the  same  time,  the  uneasiness  and  the  duties  of  paternity  ! 

These  will  excite  thy  passions,  arm  thy  heart,  and  call  up  thy  hatred  against  my 
lessons  and  my  doctrine  ;  for  1  am  an  impious  being,  who  neither  believe  in  saints 
nor  in  miracles  ;  I  am  an  impious  being,  who  would  drink  wine  in  the  midst  of  Turks 
at  Constantinople,  who  would  eat  pork  with  the  Jews,  and  the  flesh  of  a  tender  lamb 
or  a  fat  pullet  among  the  Christians  on  a  Friday,  even  within  the  palace  of  a  Pope, 
or  beneath  the  roof  of  the  Vatican.  I  am  an  impious  man,  for  I  firmly  believe  that 
three  are  more  than  one ;  (hat  the  whole  is  greater  than  one  of  its  parts  ;  that  a  body 
cannot  exist  in  a  thousand  places  at  one  and  the  same  moment,  and  be  entire  in  a 
thousand  detached  portions  of  itself. 

I  am  an  impious  man,  for  I  never  believe  on  the  word  of  another,  whatever  contra- 
dicts my  own  reason  ;  and  if  a  thousand  doctors  of  the  law  should  tell  me,  that  they 
had  seen  a  sparrow  devour  an  ox  in  a  quarter  of  an  hour,  or  take  the  carcase  in  its 
bill,  and  carry  it  to  its  nest  in  order  to  feed  its  young,  were  they  even  to  swear  by 
their  surplices,  their  stoles,  or  their  square  bonnets,  they  would  still  find  me  in- 
credulous ! 

I  am  an  impious  man,  for  I  do  not  believe  that  anointing  the  tips  of  the  fingers 
with  oil,  wearing  the  ecclesiastical  tonsure,  or  cutting  the  hair,  that  the  being  cloth- 
ed in  a  black  cassock,  or  a  violet  robe,  and  carrying  a  mitre  on  the  head,  and  a 
cross  in  the  hand,  can  render  an  ignorant  fellow  able  to  work  miracles. 

In  short,  my  brother,  I  must  be  an  impious  man,  since  my  conduct  has  no  other 
regulator  than  my  conscience ;  since  I  myself  have  no  other  principle,  than  the  de- 
sire of  public  happiness,  and  no  other  divinity  than  virtue.  Thou  must  necessarily 
hate  me,  for  it  is  a  great  crime  to  think  and  to  believe  otherwise  than  thyself ! 

But  have  I  committed  murder  or  carnage,  theft,  rapine,  evil  speaking,  calumny  *. 
have  I  taught  the  art  of  deceiving  men  1  have  I  insinuated  a  spirit  of  vengeance  1 
have  I  inculcated  despotism  on  the  part  of  the  great,  and  slavery  on  that  of  the 
humble  1 

No — on  the  contrary,  I  have  pointed  out  the  road  to  truth  ;  I  have  proved  to  thee, 
that  thy  happiness  consists  in  virtue ;  I  have  proved  to  thee,  that  thou  hast  hitherto 
been  the  dupe  of  those  who  fatten  upon  thy  substance,  and  bathe  themselves  in  thy 
sweat,  and  that  all  thy  unhappiness  arises  from  thy  credulity,  thy  habitual  hatred  to 
reflection,  and  thy  pusillanimity.  Are  these  crimes  1  I  am  not  guilty  of  any  other. 

Whoever  thou  art,  thy  friendship  is  precious  to  me  ;  whether  thou  be  Christian, 
Mahomedan,  Jew,  Indian,  Persian,  Tartar,  or  Chinese,  art  thou  not  a  man,  and  am 
not  I  thy  brother  ?  Tolerate,  therefore,  an  impious  man,  who  has  never  laboured  but 
for  the  good  of  others,  and  who  now  labours  for  thine,  at  the  very  moment  when  thou 
wishest  to  persecute  him." 

As  the  character  and  habits  of  Thomas  Paine  have  been  grossly  misrepresented  by 
those  who  either  knew  little  or  nothing  of  him,  or  were  utterly  regardless  of  truth,  » 


INTRODUCTION.  19 

shall  here  introduce  an  extract  of  a  letter  on  that  subject  from  Joel  Barlow  to  James 
Cheetham,  a  notorious  libeller  of  Mr.  Paine.  Mr.  Barlow  must  have  been  well  ac- 
quainted with  Mr.  Paine  in  France,  as  they  were  fellow-labourers  in  the  great  cause 
of  human  emancipation ;  and  his  sound  principles,  his  moral  and  literary  standing, 
are  sufficient  guarantees  for  the  correctness  of  his  statement  of  facts  that  came  under 
his  immediate  observation.  It  is,  however,  apparent,  that  a  part  of  his  communica- 
tion is  founded  on  misinformation ;  which  I  shall  endeavour  to  demonstrate. 

JOEL  BARLOW  TO  JAMES  CHEETHAM. 

"  SIR, — I  have  received  your  letter,  calling  for  information  relative  to  the  life  ot 
Thomas  Paine.  It  appears  to  me,  that  this  is  not  the  moment  to  publish  the  life  of  that 
man  in  this  country.*  His  own  writings  are  his  best  life,  and  these  are  not  read  at 
present. 

[After  noticing  the  unfavourable  impressions  which  fanatics  and  political 
enemies  of  Mr.  P.  had  infused  into  the  minds  of  a  portion  of  the  public  to- 
wards him,  Mr.  Barlow  proceeds.] 

The  writer  of  his  life,  who  should  dwell  on  these  topics,  to  the  exclusion  of  the 
great  and  estimable  traits  of  his  real  character,  might  indeed,  please  the  rabble  of  the 
age,  who  do  not  know  him  ;  the  book  might  sell ;  but  it  would  only  tend  to  render  the 
truth  more  obscure  for  the  future  biographer,  than  it  was  before. 

But  if  the  present  writer  would  give  us  Thomas  Paine  complete,  in  all  his  character, 
as  one  of  the  most  benevolent  and  disinterested  of  mankind,  endowed  with  the  clear- 
est perception,  an  uncommon  share  of  original  genius,  and  the  greatest  breadth  of 
thought ;  if  this  piece  of  biography  should  analyse  his  literary  labors,  and  rank  him, 
as  he  ought  to  be  ranked,  among  the  brightest  and  most  undeviating  luminaries  of  the 
age  in  which  he  has  lived — yet  with  a  mind  assailable  by  flattery,  and  receiving 
through  that  weak  side  a  tincture  of  vanity  which  he  was  too  proud  to  conceal;  with 
a  mind,  though  strong  enough  to  bear  him  up,  and  to  rise  elastic  under  the  heaviest 
hand  of  oppression,  yet  unable  to  endure  the  contempt  of  his  former  friends  and  fellow- 
laborers,  the  rulers  of  the  country  that  had  received  his  first  and  greatest  services — 
a  mind  incapable  of  looking  down  with  serene  compassion,  as  it  ought,  on  the  rude 
scoffs  of  their  imitators,  a  new  generation  that  knows  him  not — if  you  are  disposed 
and  prepared  to  write  his  life  thus  entire,  to  fill  up  the  picture  to  which  these  hasty 
strokes  of  outlines  give  but  a  rude  sketch  with  great  vacuities,  your  book  may  be  a 
useful  one. 

The  biographer  of  Thomas  Paine,  should  not  forget  his  mathematical  acquirements, 
and  his  mechanical  genius.  His  invention  of  the  iron-bridge,  which  led  him  to 
Europe  in  the  year  1787,  has  procured  him  a  great  reputation  in  that  branch  of  science 
in  France  and  England,  in  both  which  countries  his  bridge  has  been  adopted  in  many 
instances,  and  is  now.  much  in  use. 

You  ask  whether  he  took  an  .oath  of  allegiance  to  France.  Doubtless  the  qualifi- 
cation to  be  a  member  of  the  convention,  required  an  oath  of  fidelity  to  that  country, 
but  involved  in  it  no  abjuration  of  his  fidelity  to  this.  He  was  made  a  French 
citizen  by  the  same  decree  with  Washington,  Hamilton,  Priestley,  and  Sir  James 
Mackintosh. 

You  ask  what  company  he  kept — he  always  frequented  the  best,  both  in  England 
and  France,  till  he  became  the  object  of  calumny  in  certain  American  papers,  (echoes 
of  the  English  court  papers,)  for  his  adherence  to  what  he  thought  the  cause  of  libejrty 
in  France — till  he  conceived  himself  neglected  by  his  former  friends  in  the  United 
States.  From  that  moment  he  gave  himself  very  much  to  drink,  and  consequently  to 
companions  less  worthy  of  his  better  days. 

It  is  said  he  was  always  a  peevish  inmate — this  is  possible.  So  was  Lour  nee 
Steme,  so  was  Torquato  Tasso,  so  was  /.  /.  Rousseau ;  but  Thomas  Paine,  s  a 
visiting  acquaintance,  and  as  a  literary  friend,  the  only  points  of  view  in  whi  h  I 
knew  him,  was  one  of  the  most  instructive  men  I  have  ever  known.  He  had  a  sur- 
prising memory  and  brilliant  fancy  ;  his  mind  was  a  store  house  of  facts  and  useful 
observations ;  he  was  full  of  lively  anecdote,  and  ingenious  original  pertinent  re- 
mark, upon  almost  every  subject. 

He  was  always  charitable  to  the  poor  beyond  his  means,  a  sure  protector  and 
friend  to  all  Americans  in  distress  that  he  found  in  foreign  countries.  And  he  had 
frequent  occasions  to  exert  his  influence  in  protecting  them  during  the  revolution  in 

*  America. 


INTRODUCTION. 

France.     His  writings  will  answer  for  his  patriotism,  and  his  entire  devotion  to  what 
he  conceived  to  be  the  best  interest  and  happiness  of  mankind. 

And  us  to  his  religion,  as  it  is  that  of  most  of  the  men  of  science  of  the  pres- 
ent age,  and  probably  of  three  fourths  of  those  of  the  last,  there  can  be  no  just 
reason  for  making  it  an  exception  in  him. 

This,  sir,  is  all  J  have  to  remark  on  the  subject  you  mention 
Kolarama,  August  11, 1809. 

REMARKS. 

Mr.  Banow  seems  to  have  entertained  erroneous  opinions  in  regard  to  the  treat- 
ment of  Mr.  Paine  in  America.  He  was  received  by  the  ruler,  or  first  magis- 
trate of  the  country.  Thomas  Jefferson,  with  the  utmost  respect  and  friendship. — He 
was  invited  by  him  to  return  to  the  United  States ;  and  on  being  asked  if  ,he  had 
done  so,  replied,  "  I  have,  and  when  he  arrives,  if  there  be  an  office  in  my  gift,  suit- 
able for  him  to  fill,  I  vvill  give  it  to  him ; — I  will  never  abandon  old  friends  to  make 
room  for  new  ones."  A  friendly  correspondence  between  these  two  distinguished 
philanthropists  was  maintained  till  the  close  of  Mr.  Paine's  life.  I  am  also  well  as- 
sured, that  the  heads  of  departments  and  members  of  congress  paid  Mr.  Paine  the 
utmost  respect,  during  his  residence  at  the  city  of  Washington  ;  and,  on  his  arrival  in 
New  York,  a  public  dinner  was  given  to  him,  at  which  about  one  hundred  respectable 
citizens  attended.  The  most  distinguished  literary  characters  paid  him  every  atten- 
tion, and  the  mayor  of  the  city  gave  him  an  unlimited  invitation  to  visit  him,  when- 
ever he  found  it  convenient.  "But  Mr.  Paine  secluded  himself  very  much  from  socie- 
ty; he  courted  no  favours,  and  he  never  was  in  the  habit  of  giving  entertainments,  the 
rnenns  commonly  employed  to  attract  the  attention  of  the  fashionable  world.  A  friend 
of  his, about  to  accompany  him  on  a  visit  to  a  gentleman  of  great  scientific  acquirements, 
took  the  liberty  of  suggesting  to  him  the  propriety  of  being  more  particular  in  his  ap- 
pearance ;  to  which  he  replied,  "  let  those  dress  that  need  it."  Showing  thereby 
his  contempt  of  the  art  and  management  by  which  those  of  little  or  no  merit  acquire 
respect. 

Mr.  Paine,  to  be  sure,  was  abused  by  editors  of  papers  unfriendly  to  democracy. 
So  was  Dr.  Franklin,  so  was  Thomas  Jefferson,  so  was  Joel  Barlow.  If  Mr.  Paine 
had  been  treated  with  respect,  or  even  not  abused  by  those  editors,  it  would  have 
been  a  sure  sign,  that  he  had  abandoned  the  cause  of  liberty,  and  of  man.  But  his 
political  course  has  been  marked  by  that  bold  and  manly  independence  of  character 
which  has  certainly  commanded,  if  not  the  approbation,  at  least  the  respect  of  his 
opponents. 

Mr.  Barlow  himself,  on  account  of  his  political  opinions  had  been  treated  with  the 
most  shameful  neglect  by  his  old  friend?  and  associates  of  the  .New  England  States, and 
he  felt  vexed  at  it,  and'seems  to  take  this  opportunity  to  express  his  contempt,  by 
lamenting  that  Mr.  Paine  should,  as  he  supposed,  have  been  mortified  at  similar  treat- 
ment. 

Mr.  Barlow  was  a  fashionable  man,  and  had  the  means,  as  well  as  the  inclination 
to  make  a  show.  Had  Mr.  Paine  acquired  (which  he  might  have  done  if  he  had 
sold  instead  of  given  away  his  works)  a  sufficiency  to  purchase  such  an  establishment 
as  Mr.  Barlow  had,  at  Kolarama,  and  had  been  so  disposed,  he  might  have  induced 
the  first  men  in  the  country  to  eat  his  dinners  and  to  sound  his  praise. 

It  was  to  be  expected  that  religious  bigots,  who  conceive  themselves  privileged  to 
hate  and  persecute  every  man  that  does  not  believe  in  mysteries  and  witchcraft,  would 
shun  and  speak  evil  of  Mr.  Paine  ;  as  well  as  certain  pharisaical  politicians,  whose 
consequence  mainly  depends  on  a  supposed  coincidence  of  sentiment  with  the  foregoing. 
Such  men  would  avoid  coming  in  contact  with  a  man,  the  fire  of  whose  genius  they 
could  not  endure  for  a  moment. 

The  opponents  of  Mr.  Paine's  political  and  religious  writings  have  shown  great  so- 
licitude to  fix  upon  him  the  charge  of  intemperance ;  as  though,  this  circumstance,  if 
true,  could  invalidate,  or  in  the  least  weaken,  the  moral  force  of  his  principles.  The 
apostate,  Cheetham,  in  his  letter  to  Barlow,  particularly  alludes  to  this  subject.  And 
it  appears  that  the  latter  incautiously  has  too  readily  acceeded  to  the  slander.  The 
mind,  memory,  and  fancy  of  Mr.  Paine,  as  described  by  Mr.  B.  could  not  apply  to 
a  man  who  "  gave  himself  very  much  to  arwi/r."  But,  as  Mr.  Barlow's  authority 
is  justly  entitled  to  the  highest  consideration  ;  and  as  great  importance  has  affectedly 
been  attached  to  this  allegation  against  our  author ;  for  the  satisfaction  of  those  who 
revere  his  memory,  I  have  made  the  most  rigid  inquiries  of  persons  who  have  been  in- 


INTRODUCTION,  2. 

timate  with  him,  either  in  Europe  or  America,  to  ascertain  the  facts  in  this  case.  A 
friend  of  mine  gives  me  the  following  account  of  a  visit  he  made  to  Mr.  Paine  in  the 
summer  of  1806.  He  was  then  residing  on  his  farm  at  New  Rochelle,  and  this  gen- 
tleman remained  with  him  for  several  days,  during  which  time  Mr.  Paine's  only 
drink  was  water,  excepting  one  tumbler  of  spirits  and  water,  sweetened,  after  dinner, 
and  one  after  supper.  Mr.  Dean,  who  managed  the  farm,  assured  him  that  this 
was  Mr.  Paine's  constant  habit,  and  that  one  quart  of  spirits  sufficed  him  for  a  week, 
including  that  given  to  his  friends;  which  he  regularly  procured  from  a  grocer  every 
Saturday.  This  gentleman  also  saw  a  certificate,  signed  by  John  Lovett,  keeper  of 
the  city  hotel,  New-York,  with  whom  Mr.  Paine  had  lodged  as  a  boarder,  testifying 
to  his  sober  habits.  This  had  been  procured  at  the  request  of  a  number  of  gentlemen 
of  Boston,  who  were  desirous  to  obtain  correct  information  in  regard  to  the  charges 
preferred  against  him  in  this  respect. 

The  fact  is,  Mr.  Paine  was  not  a  fashionable  man  of  the  world,  his  recluse  mode 
of  life  disqualified  him  for  convivial  parties,  and  when  induced,  by  his  friends,  to  join 
in  them,  he  could  not  keep  pace  in  drinking  with  those  more  used  to  such  meetings, 
without  being  disguised  by  it,  which  was  sometimes  the  case.  The  very  circumstance, 
therefore,  of  his  abstemious  habits  rendering  him  unable  to  bear  but  a.  email  quantity 
of  spirituous  liquor,  without  feeling  its  effects,  appears  to  have  given  rise  to  the  slan- 
ders which  have  been  promulgated  against  him.  The  acuteness  and  strength  of  mind 
which  he  possessed  to  the  close  of  life  is  a  proof  of  the  correctness  of  this  opinion. 
Few,  if  any,  of  those  who  accused  him  of  injuring  his  faculties  by  hard  drinking  could 
cope  with  him  in  the  field  of  argument,  even  in  the  most  advanced  stage  of  his  life. 
They  had  reason  to  wish  that  he  had  been  such  as  they  represented  him  to  be.  In  that 
case",  he  would  have  been  a  far  less  formidable  antagonist,  and  besides  kept  many  of 
his  accusers  in  countenance ;  for  it  is  not  unusual  for  the  advocates  of  royalty,  after 
drinking  one  or  two  bottles,  to  curse  Thomas  Paine  for  a  drunkard. 

If  what  was  said  by  his  enemies  had  become  notorious,  as  they  pretend,  he  would 
hardly  venture  to  speak  of  himself  in  the  manner  he  has,  in  his  letter  to  Samuel 
Adams ;  which  he  caused  to  be  published  in  the  National  Intelligencer,  a  paper 
printed  at  Washington  City,  and  is  as  follows  :  "  I  have  yet,  I  believe,  some  years 
in  store,  for  I  have  a  good  state  of  health  and  a  happy  mind ;  I  take  care  of  both, 
by  nourishing  the  first  with  temperance,  and  the  latter  with  abundance.  This,  I  be- 
lieve, you  will  allow  to  be  the  true  philosophy  of  life." 

Finally,  from  all  I  can  learn,  Mr.  Paine  never  drank  any  spirituous  liquors  before 
dinner.  He  was  always  bright  in  the  morning,  and  able  to  wield  his  pen  with  effect, 
and  when  it  is  considered,  that  he  was  without  family,  in  a  manner  isolated  from 
society,  and  bitterly  attacked  on  all  sides  by  the  enemies  of  civil  and  religious  liberty, 
if  he  occasionally  indulged  a  little  to  dissipate  the  chagrin  arising  from  these  causes, 
some  grains  of  allowance  ought  to  be  made,  at  least  by  his  friends ;  from  his  enemies 
none  are  expected. 

I  cannot  relinquish  the  subject  without  taking  notice  of  one  of  the  most  vile  and 
wicked  stories  that  was  ever  engendered  in  the  fruitful  imagination  of  depraved  mor- 
tals. It  was  fabricated  by  a  woman,  named  Mary  Hinsdale,  and  published  by  one 
Charles  Collins,  at  New-York,  or  rather,  it  is  probable  that  this  work  was  the  joint 
production  of  Collins,  and  some  other  fanatics,  and  that  they  induced  this  stupid,  ig- 
norant woman  to  stand  sponsor  for  it. 

It  states,  in  substance ;  that  Thomas  Paine,  in  his  last  illness,  was  in  the  most 
pitiable  condition  for  want  of  the  mere  necessaries  of  life;  and  that  the  neighbours 
out  of  sheer  compassion,  contributed  their  aid  to  supply  him  with  sustenance  :  that  he 
had  become  converted  to  superstition,*  and  lamented  that  all  his  religious  works  had 
not  been  burned  :  that  Mrs.  Bonneville  was  in  the  utmost  distress  for  having  abandon- 
ed her  religion,  as  she  (M.  H.)  said  for  that  of  Mr.  Paine,  which  he  now  told  her 
would  not  answer  the  purpose,  &c.  In  all  this  rodomotade  there  is  not  a  single,  soli- 
tary ray  of  truth  to  give  it  a  colourable  pretext.  It  is  humiliating  to  be  under  the 
necessity  of  exposing  such  contemptible  nonsense.  Collins,  if  he  was  not  the  author, 
was  assured  of  its  falsity  :  But  being  full  of  the  spirit  of  fanaticism  and  intolerance, 
and  believing,  no  doubt,  that  the  end  sanctified  the  means,  he  continued  to  circulate 
the  pious  fraud,  and  the  clergy  exultingly  retailed  it  from  the  pulpit.  Nothing  but 
religious  frenzy  could  have  induced  Collins,  after  being  warned  of  the  crime  he 

*  I  make  use  of  the  word  superstition,  and  not  Christianity,  because  Mr.  Paine  was 
strictly  a  Christian  in  the  proper  sense  of  the  term,  which,  as  before  observed,  is  pure 
deism. 


22  INTRODUCTION. 

was  committing,  to  persist  in  publishing  this  abominable  trash.*  He  had  the 
hardihood  even  to  apply  to  William  Cobbett  for  the  purpose  of  inducing  him  to  insert 
it  in  the  life  of  Thomas  Paine,  which  Mr.  Cobbett  then  contemplated  to  write.  For 
which  he  received  due  chastisement  from  the  pen  of  that  distinguished  writer,  in  a 
number  of  his  register.  I  am  told  that  Mr.  Cobbett  subsequently,  having  taken  great 
pains  to  investigate  the  falsity  of  this  story,  exposed  and  refuted  it  in  the  most  ample 
manner,  in  his  Evening  Post.  This  I  ha-ve  not  seen,  nor  is  the  Register,  containing 
the  article  alluded  to,  before  me.  Mrs.  Bonneville  was  absent  in  France  at  the  time 
of  its  first  appearance  in  New-York,  and  when  shown  to  her  on  her  return  to  Ameri- 
ca, although  her  feelings  were  highly  agitated  at  the  baseness  of  the  fabrication,  she 
would  not  permit  her  name  to  appear  in  print  in  competition  with  that  of  Mary  Hins- 
dale.  No  notice  therefore  has  been  taken  of  it,  excepting  by  Mr.  Cobbett.  Indeed 
it  was  considered  by  the  friends  of  Mr.  Paine  generally  to  be  too  contemptible  to  con- 
trovert. But  as  many  pious  people  continue  to  believe,  or  pretend  to  l>elieve  in  this 
stupid  story,  it  was  thought  proper  to  say  a  few  words  upon  it  in  this  publication. 

The  facts  are  as  follows  : — Mary  Hinsdale  was  hired  at  service  in  the  family  of 
Mr.  Willet  Hicks,  residing  at  Greenwich  Village,  in  the  neighbourhood  of  Mr.  Paine, 
who  occasionally  sent  some  little  delicacies  to  him  in  the  time  of  his  sickness,  as  every 
good  neighbour  would  do  ;  and  this  woman  was  the  bearer.  Here  is  the  whole  foun- 
dation upon  which  the  distorted  imagination  of  Mary  Hinsdale,  or  some  one  for  her, 
has  raised  this  diabolical  fiction.  Mr.  Hicks  was  in  the  habit  of  seeing  Mr.  Paine 
frequently,  and  must  have  known  if  such  a  wonderful  revolution  had  taken  place  in 
hie  mind,  as  is  stated,  and  he  does  not  hesitate  to  say,  that  the  whole  account  is  a 
pious  fraud.  Mr.  Hicks  is  a  respectable  merchant  at  New-York,  and  any  one 
there,  who  has  any  doubts  on  the  subject,  by  calling  on  him  will  be  satisfied.  Even 
James  Cheetham,  the  libeller  of  Mr.  Paine,  acknowledges  that  he  died  in  the  reli- 
gious faith  which  he  had  inculcated  in  his  writings.  Which  is  also  attested  by  his 
physician,  Dr.  Manley,  and  all  those  who  visited  him  in  his  last  illness.  But  to  put 
this  matter  beyond  all  cavil,  I  shall  add  the  certificate  of  two  old  and  highly  respecta- 
ble citizens,  Thomas  Nixon  of  New-York,  and  Capt.  Daniel  Pelton  of  New  Rochelle. 
It  was  addressed  to  William  Cobbelt,  under  an  expectation  that  he  was  about  to  write 
the  life  of  Thomas  Paine,  and  left  with  a  friend  to  be  handed  to  him ;  but  as  the  un- 
dertaking was  relinquished,  it  was  never  delivered,  and  is  now  in  my  possession,  in 
the  hand  writing  of  the  signers ;  and  is  as  follows  : 

TO  MR.  WILLIAM  COBBETT. 

SIR — Having  been  informed,  that  you  have  a  design  to  write  a  history  of  the  life 
and  writings  of  Thomas  Paine,  if  you  have  been  furnished  with  materials  in  respect 
to  his  religious  opinions,  or  rather  of  his  recantation  of  his  former  opinions  before  his 
death,  all  you  may  have  heard  of  his  recanting  is  false.  Being  aware  that  such  re- 
ports would  be  raised  after  his  death  by  fanacticks  which  infested  his  house  at  the 
time  it  was  expected  he  would  die,  we,  the  subscribers,  intimate  acquaintances  of 
Thomas  Paine,  since  the  year  1776,  went  to  his  house — he  was  sitting  up  in  a  chair, 
and  apparently  in  the  full  vigor  and  use  of  all  his  mental  faculties.  We  interrogated 
him  on  his  religious  opinions,  and  if  he  had  changed  his  mind  or  repented  of  any 
thing  he  had  said  or  wrote  on  that  subject.  He  answered,  "  not  at  all,"  and  appeared 
rather  offended  at  our  supposition  that  any  change  should  take  place  in  his  mind. 
We  took  down  in  writing  the  questions  put  to  him,  and  his  answers  thereto,  before  a 
number  of  persons  then  in  his  room,  amongst  which  was  his  Doctor,  Mrs.  Bonneville, 
&c.  This  paper  is  mislaid  and  cannot  be  found  at  present,  bat  the  above  is  die  sub- 
stance, which  can  be  attested  by  many  living  witnesses. 

THOMAS  NIXON. 

DANIEL  PELTON. 
New-York,  April  24th,  1818. 

*  Since  writing  the  above,  it  has  oeen  suggested  to  me,  by  a  gentleman  wno  knows 
him,  that  this  base  act  of  Collins  is  attributable  more  to  his  actual  stupidity  than  either 
his  fanaticism  or  malice.  That  he  is  too  weak  to  be  aware  of  the  sin  of  slander ;  and 
has  no  doubt,  in  this  case,  been  made  use  of,  as  a  mere  puppet,  by  others  behind  the 
scene,  more  knowing  and  more  wicked  than  himself.  If  this  be  the  fact,  it  is  charity 
to  state  it  to  the  public,  as  his  case  will  tend  to  excite  pity,  and  depreciate,  in  some 
measure,  the  enormity  of  his  guilt  in  this  transaction. 


INTRODUCTION.  23 

The  questions  and  answers,  alluded  to  in  this  certificate,  are  wanting  to  render  it 
complete,  but  the  intention  of  it  is  forcibly  conveyed,  that  is,  that  no  change  had  ta- 
ken place  in  the  mind  of  Mr,  Paine.  And  the  world  may  rest  assured  that  he  died 
as  he  had  lived,  like  a  philosopher,  in  the  belief  of  ONE  GOD,  and  in  the  hope  of  IM- 
MORTALITY in  another  life. 

As  to  his  pecuniary  circumstances,  he  was  possessed  at  his  death,  of  a  farm,  which 
had  been  sold  by  him  some  years  before  for  $10,000,  but  the  purchaser  dying,  his 
family  induced  Mr.  P.  to  receive  it  back.  He  had  $1,500  in  cash  on  hand,  or  in  con- 
vertible insurance  stock ;  and  had  been  paying  $30  a  week  for  several  weeks  before 
his  death,  for  the  board  and  accommodations  of  himself,  Mrs.  Bonneville,  and 
a  nurse  ;  which  was  regularly  paid  at  the  end  of  each  week.  This  does  not  look  like 
being  in  want  of  the  means  ol  subsistence. 

In  regard  to  what  toqk  place  respecting  his  burial,  as  it  has  been  incorrectly  sta- 
ted, it  may  not  be  amiss  to  remark,  that  not  long  before  his  death,  he  observed  to 
Mr.  Willet  Hicks,  that  as  his  family  belonged  to  the  society  of  Quakers,  and  as  he 
had  been  educated  in  that  persuasion  himself,  and  knew  that  its  members  possessed 
less  superstition  than  other  sectarians,  he  should  perfer  being  interred  in  their  bury- 
ing ground ;  but  added,  as  he  had  been  so  long  separated  from  them,  perhaps  there 
might  be  objections  on  their  part ;  and,  if  so,  it  was  of  no  consequence.  Mr.  Hicks 
accordingly  made  the  proposal  to  the  society,  which,  in  reply,  suggested  the  probabil- 
ity that  Mr.  P's.  friends  might  wish  to  raise  a  monument  to  his  memory,  which  being 
contrary  to  their  rules,  would  render  it  inconvenient  to  them.  On  this  being  commu- 
nicated to  Mr.  P.  he  received  it  with  indifference,  and  here  the  matter  ended.  I  take 
the  liberty  of  again  referring  to  Mr.  Hicks  for  the  truth  of  this  statement.  It  has 
been  falsely  said,  that  a  difference  of  religious  opinions  was  the  ground  of  objection 
made  to  Mr.  P's.  proposition  ;  which,  if  true,  would  be  a  reproach  to  the  Quaker 
society,  or  to  any  other  religious  denomination  in  like  case.  It  is  well  known,  that 
in  bigotted  catholic  countries,  no  deist,  or  protestant  (heretic,  as  the  catholics  would 
call  him)  would  be  permitted  to  be  buried  in  any  consecrated  church  ground.  But 
it  is  to  be  hoped  that  no  protestant  of  any  denomination  would  wish  to  see  his  sect 
retrograde  so  far  into  religion*  barbarism  as  to  refuse  decent  burial  to  a  fellow-mor- 
tal on  account  of  his  religious  faith.  No  such  objection  has  ever  been  made  in  New- 
York;  and  the  vestry  of  trinity  church  are  obliged  by  law  to  permit,  without  reward 
all  strangers,  as  well  as  those  who  are  not  members  of  any  particular  church  or  con- 
gregation, to  be  interred  in  their  burying-ground,  on  pain,  in  case  of  refusal,  of  for* 
feiting  their  charter. 

Attempts  have  been  made  to  injure  the  character  of  Mr.  Paine,  by  impugning  that 
of  Mrs.  Bonneville.  James  Cheetham,  for  this  offence,  after  a  long  and  rigid  inves- 
tigation in  a  court  of  justice,  was  mulct  in  the  sum  of  £100,  and  obliged  to  expunge 
the  obnoxious  passage  from  his  infamous  book.  As  the  connection  of  Mr.  P.  with 
the  Bonneville  family  is  not  generally  known,  it  is  proper  to  observe,  that  he  resided 
•with  Mr.  B.  at  Paris,  as  his  friend  and  guest  for  the  space  of  six  years.  Bonneville 
was  the  editor  of  a  public  paper  during  the  revolution  of  France,  and  on  the  eleva- 
tion of  Bonaparte  to  power,  refused  to  approbate  the  measure,  and  wrote  against  it. 
In  this  he  was  probably  advised  and  aided  by  Mr.  P.  The  consequence  was,  that 
Bonaparte  suppressed  his  paper,  which  was  the  cause  of  great  embarrassments  to 
him ;  and  Paine,  on  going  to  America,  invited  Bonneville  to  follow  him  with  his  fam- 
ily, promising  to  do  every  thing  in  his  power  to  aid  him.  Accordingly,  some  time 
after  his  departure,  Bonneville  sent  his  wife  and  three  children,  remaining  in  France 
himself  to  settle  his  affairs.  They  were  received  by  Mr.  Paine  with  the  utmost 
kindness,  and  provided  for  ;  and  at  his  death  he  left  by  his  will  to  Bonneville  and  hjs 
children,  the  greatest  portion  of  his  property  j  thereby  paying  a  debt  of  gratitude  with 
interest. 


TO   MY 

FELLOW  CITIZENS 

OF    THE 

UNITED  STATES  OF  AMERICA. 


PUT  the  following  work  under  your  protection.  It  con- 
tains my  opinion  upon  Religion.  You  will  do  me  the  justice  to 
remember,  that  I  have  always  strenuously  supported  the  Right 
of  every  Man  to  his  opinion,  however  different  that  opinion  might 
be  to  mine.  He  who  denies  to  another  this  right,  makes  a  slave 
of  himself  to  his  present  opinion,  because  he  precludes  himself 
the  right  of  changing  it. 

The  most  formidable  weapon,  against  errors  of  every  kind,  is 
Reason.     I  have  never  used  any  other,  and  I  trust  I  never  shall. 

Your  affectionate  friend  and  fellow-citizen, 

THOMAS  PAINE. 

Luxembourg,  (Paris,)  %tii  Pluvioise, 
Second  year  of  the  French  Republic,  one  and  indivisible. 
January  27,  O.  S.  1794. 


THE 

AGE  OF  REASON. 

PART    THE    FIRST. 
BEING  AN  INVESTIGATION  OF 

TRUE  AND  FABULOUS  THEOLOGY. 


IT  has  been  my  intention,  for  several  years  past,  to  publisn  my 
thoughts  upon  religion  ;  I  am  well  aware  of  the  difficulties  that 
attend  the  subject,  and  from  that  consideration,  had  reserved  it  to 
a  more  advanced  period  of  life.  I  intended  it  to  be  the  last  offer- 
ing I  should  make  to  my  fellow-citizens  of  all  nations,  and  that  at 
a  time  when  the  purity  of  the  motive  that  induced  me  to  it,  could 
not  admit  of  a  question,  even  by  those  who  might  disapprove  the 
work. 

The  circumstance  that  has  now  taken  place  in  France  of  the 
total  abolition  of  the  whole  national  order  of  priesthood,  and  of 
every  thing  appertaining  to  compulsive  systems  of  religion,  and 
compulsive  articles  of  faith,  has  not  only  precipitated  my  intention, 
but  rendered  a  work  of  this  kind  exceedingly  necessary,  lest,  in 
the  general  wreck  of  superstition,  of  false  systems  of  government, 
and  false  theology,  we  lose  sight  of  morality,  of  humanity,  and  of 
the  theology  that  is  true. 

As  several  of  my  colleagues,  and  others  of  my  fellow-citizens  of 
France,  have  given  me  the  example  of  making  their  voluntary  and 
individual  profession  of  faith,  I  also  will  make  mine  ;  and  I  do  this 
with  all  that  sincerity  and  frankness  with  which  the  mind  of  man 
communicates  with  itself. 

I  believe  in  one  God,  and  no  more  ;  and  I  hope  for  happiness 
beyond  this  life. 

I  believe  the  equality  of  man  ;  and  I  believe  that  religious  du- 
ties consist  in  doing  justice,  loving  mercy,  and  endeavouring  to 
make  our  fellow-creatures  happy. 

But,  lest  it  should  be  supposed  that  I  believe  mary  other  things 
in  addition  to  these,  I  shall,  in  the  progress  of  this  work,  declare 
the  things  I  do  not  believe,  and  my  reasons  for  not  believing 
them. 

I  do  not  believe  in  the  creed  professed  by  the  Jewish  church, 
by  the  Roman  church,  by  the  Greek  church,  by  the  Turkish 


28  *        -Sft^E    AGE    OF    REASON. 

that  I  know 


of.  >My^wrTimLna  is  rky  own 

^R  national  institutions^  churches,  whether  Jewish,  Christian, 
or  Turkish,  appear  to  me  no  other  than  human  inventions,  set  up 
to  terrify  and  enslave  mankind,  and  monopolize  power  and 
profit. 

I  do  not  mean  by  this  declaration  to  condemn  those  who  believe 
otherwise;  they  have  the  same  right  to  their  belief  as  I  have  to 
mine.  But  it  is  necessary  to  the  happiness  of  man,  that  he  be 
mentally  faithful  to  himself.  Infidelity  does  not  consist  in  believ- 
ing or  in  disbelieving  ;  it  consists  in  professing  to  believe  what 
he  does  not  believe. 

It  is  impossible  to  calculate  the  moral  mischief,  if  I  may  so  ex- 
press it,  that  mental  lying  has  produced  in  society.  When  a  man 
has  so  far  corrupted  and  prostituted  the  chastity  of  his  mind,  as  to 
subscribe  his  professional  belief  to  things  he  does  not  believe,  he 
has  prepared  himself  for  the  commission  of  every  other  crime.  — 
He  takes  up  the  trade  of  a  priest  for  the  sake  of  gain,  and  in  order 
to  qualify  himself  for  that  trade,  he  begins  with  a  perjury.  Can 
we  conceive  any  thing  more  destructive  to  morality  than  this  ? 

Soon  after  I  had  published  the  pamphlet,  "  COMMON  SENSE,"  in 
America,  I  saw  the  exceeding  probability  that  a  revolution  in  the 
system  of  government  would  be  followed  by  a  revolution  in  the 
system  of  religion.  The  adulterous  connexion  of  church  and 
state,  wherever  it  had  taken  place,  whether  Jewish,  Christian,  or 
Turkish,  had  so  effectually  prohibited  by  pains  and  penalties  every 
discussion  upon  established  creeds,  and  upon  first  principles  of 
religion,  that  until  the  system  of  government  should  be  changed, 
those  subjects  could  not  be  brought  fairly  and  openly  before  the 
world  ;  but  that  whenever  this  should  be  done,  a  revolution  in  the 
system  of  religion  would  follow.  Human  inventions  and  priest- 
craft would  be  detected  ;  and  man  would  return  to  the  pure,  un- 
'  mixed,  and  unadulterated  belief  of  one  God,  and  no  more. 

Every  national  church  or  religion  has  established  itself  by  pre- 
tending some  special  mission  from  God,  communicated  to  certain 
individuals.  The  Jews  have  their  Moses  ;  the  Christians  their 
Jesus  Christ,  their  apostles,  and  saints  ;  and  the  Turks  their 
Mahomet,  as  if  the  way  to  God  was  not  open  to  every  man 
alike. 

Each  of  those  churches  show  certain  books,  which  they  call 
revelation,  or  the  word  of  God.  The  Jews  say,  that  their  word 
of  God  was  given  by  God,  to  Moses,  face  to  face  ;  the  Christians 
say,  that  their  word  of  God  came  by  divine  inspiration  ;  and  the 
Turks  say,  that  their  word  of  God  (the  Koran)  was  brought  by 
an  angel  from  Heaven.  Each  of  those  churches  accuse  the  other 
of  unbelief  ;  and,  for  my  own  part,  I  disbelieve  them  all. 

As  it  is  necessary  to  affix  right  ideas  to  words,  I  will,  before  I 
proceed  further  into  the  subject,  offer  some  other  observations  on 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  29 

the  word  revelation.  Revelation,  when  applied  to  religion,  means 
something  communicated  immediately  from  God  to  man. 

No  one  will  deny  or  dispute  the  power  of  the  Almighty  to  make 
such  a  communication,  if  he  pleases.  But  admitting,  for  the  sake 
of  a  case,  that  something  has  been  revealed  to  a  certain  person, 
and  not  revealed  to  any  other  person,  it  is  revelation  to  that  person 
only.  When  he  tells  it  to  a  second  person,  a  second  to  a  third, 
a  third  to  a  fourth,  and  so  on,  it  ceases  to  be  a  revelation  to  all 
those  persons.  It  is  revelation  to  the  first  person  only,  and 
hearsay  to  every  other  ;  .and,  consequently,  they  are  not  obliged 
to  believe  it. 

It  is  a  contradiction  in  terms  and  ideas,  to  call  any  thing  a  reve- 
lation that  comes  to  us  at  second-hand,  either  verbally  or  in  writ- 
ing. Revelation  is  necessarily  limited  to  the  first  communication  ; 
after  this,  it  is  only  an  account  of  something  which  that  person 
says  was  a  revelation  made  to  him  ;  and  though  he  may  find  him- 
self obliged  to  believe  it,  it  cannot  be  incumbent  on  me  to  believe 
it  in  the  same  manner ;  for  it  was  not  a  revelation  made  to  we, 
and  I  have  only  his  word  for  it  that  it  was  made  to  him. 

When  Moses  told  the  children  of  Israel  that  he  received  the 
two  tables  of  the  commandments  from  the  hands  of  God,  they  were 
not  obliged  to  believe  him,  because  they  had  no  other  authority  for 
it  than  his  telling  them  so ;  and  I  have  no  other  authority  for  it 
than  some  historian  telling  me  so.  The  commandments  carry  no 
internal  evidence  of  divinity  with  them  ;  they  contain  some  good 
moral  precepts,  such  as  any  man  qualified  to  be  a  lawgiver,  or  a 
legislator,  could  produce  himself,  without  having  recourse  to  su- 
pernatural intervention.* 

When  I  am  told  that  the  Koran  was  written  in  Heaven,  and 
brought  to  Mahomet  by  an  angel,  tne  account  comes  too  near  the 
same  kind  of  hearsay  evidence  and  second-hand  authority  as  the 
former.  I  did  not  see  the  angel  myself,  and,  therefore,  I  have  a 
right  not  to  believe  it. 

When  also  I  am  told  that  a  woman  called  the  Virgin  Mary,  said, 
or  gave  out,  that  she  was  with  child  without  any  cohabitation  with 
a  man,  and  that  her  betrothed  husband,  Joseph,  said  that  an  angel 
told  him  so,  I  have  a  right  to  believe  them  or  not :  such  a  circum- 
stance required  a  much  stronger  evidence  than  their  bare  word  for 
it  ;  but  we  have  not  even  this — for  neither  Joseph  nor  Mary  wrote 
any  such  matter  themselves  ;  it  is  only  reported  by  others  that 
they  said  so — it  is  hearsay  upon  hearsay,  and  I  do  not  choose  to 
rest  my  belief  upon  such  evidence. 

It  is,  however,  not  •  difficult  to  account  for  the  credit  that  was 
given  to  the  story  of  Jesus  Christ  being  the  son  of  God.  He  was 
born  when  the  heathen  mythology  had  still  some  fashion  and  re- 

*  It  is,  however,  necessary  to  except  the  declaration  which  says,  that  God  visits 
the  sins  of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  ;  it  is  contrary  to  every  principle  of 
moral  ju.<;tice. 


30  THE    AGE    OF   REASON. 

pute  in  the  world,  and  that  mythology  had  prepared  the  people 
for  the  belief  of  such  a  story.  Almost  all  the  extraordinary  men 
that  lived  under  the  heathen  mythology,  were  reputed  to  be  the 
sons  of  some  of  their  gods.  It  was  not  a  new  thing,  at  that  time, 
to  believe  a  man  to  have  been  celestially  begotten  ;  the  inter- 
course of  gods  with  women  was  then  a  matter  of  familiar  opinion. 
Their  Jupiter,  according  to  their  accounts,  had  cohabited  with 
hundreds  ;  the  story  therefore  had  nothing  in  it  either  new,  won- 
derful, or  obscene  ;  it  was  conformable  to  the  opinions  that  then 
prevailed  among  the  people  called  Gentiles,  or  Mythologists,  and 
it  was  those  people  only  that  believed  it.  The  Jews,  who  had 
kept  strictly  to  the  belief  of  one  God,  and  no  more,  and  who  had 
always  rejected  the  heathen  mythology,  never  credited  the  story. 

It  is  curious  to  observe  how  the  theory  of  what  is  called  the 
Christian  church,  sprung  out  of  the  tale  of  the  heathen  mythology. 
A  direct  incorporation  took  place  in  the  first  instance,  by  making 
the  reputed  founder  to  be  celestially  begotten.  The  trinity  of  gods 
that  then  followed  was  no  other  than  a  reduction  of  the  former 
plurality,  which  was  about  twenty  or  thirty  thousand  ;  the  statue 
of  Mary  succeeded  the  statue  of  Diana  of  Ephesus  ;  the  deifica- 
tion of  heroes  changed  into  the  canonization  of  saints  ;  the  mythol- 
ogists  had  gods  for  every  thing  ;  the  Christian  mythologists  had 
saints  for  every  thing  ;  the  church  became  as  crowded  with  the 
one,  as  the  pantheon  had  been  with  the  other ;  and  Rome  was  the 
place  of  both.  The  Christian  theory  is  little  else  than  the  idola- 
try of  the  ancient  Mythologists,  accommodated  to  the  purposes  of 
power  and  revenue  ;  and  it  yet  remains  to  reason  and  philosophy 
to  abolish  the  amphibious  fraud. 

Nothing  that  is  here  said  can  apply,  even  with  the  most  distant 
disrespect,  to  the  real  character  of  Jesus  Christ.  He  was  a  vir- 
tuous and  an  amiable  man.  The  morality  that  he  preached  and 
practised  was  of  the  most  benevolent  kind  ;  and  though  similar 
systems  of  morality  had  been  preached  by  Confucius,  and  by  some 
of  the  Greek  philosophers,  many  years  before  ;  by  the  Quakers 
since  ;  and  by  many  good  men  in  all  ages,  it  has  not  been  ex- 
ceeded by  any. 

Jesus  Christ  wrote  no  account  of  himself,  of  his  birth,  paren- 
tage, or  any  thing  else  ;  not  a  line  of  what  is  called  the  New  Tes- 
tament is  of  his  own  writing.  The  history  of  him  is  altogether 
the  work  of  other  people  ;  and  as  to  the  account  given  of  his  res- 
urrection and  ascension,  it  was  the  necessary  counterpart  to  the 
story  of  his  birth.  His  historians,  having  brought  him  into  the 
world  in  a  supernatural  manner,  were  obliged  to  take  him  out 
again  in  the  same  manner,  or  the  first  part  of  the  story  must  have 
fallen  to  the  ground. 

The  wretched  contrivance  with  which  this  latter  part  is  told,  ex- 
ceeds every  thing  that  went  before  it.  The  first  part,  that  of  the 
miraculous  conception,  was  not  a  thing  that  admitted  of  publicity  ; 


THE    AGE   Of  REASON.  31 

and  therefore  the  tellers  of  this  part  of  the  story  had  this  advan- 
tage, that  though  they  might  not  be  credited,  they  could  not  be 
detected.  They  could  not  be  expected  to  prove  it,  because  it  was 
not  one  of  those  things  that  admitted  of  proof,  and  it  was  impossi- 
ble that  the  person  of  whom  it  was  told  could  prove  it  himself. 

But  the  resurrection  of  a  dead  person  from  the  grave,  and  his 
ascension  through  the  air,  is  a  thing  very  different  as  to  the  evi- 
dence it  admits  of,  to  the  invisible  conception  of  a  child  in  the 
womb.  The  resurrection  and  ascension,  supposing  them  to  have 
taken  place,  admitted  of  public  and  ocular  demonstration,  like  that 
of  the  ascension  of  a  balloon,  or  the  sun  at  noon  day,  to  all  Jeru- 
salem at  least.  A  thing  which  every  body  is  required  to  believe, 
requires  that  the  proof  and  evidence  of  it  should  be  equal  to  all, 
and  universal ;  and  as  the  public  visibility  of  this  last  related  act 
was  the  only  evidence  that  could  give  sanction  to  the  former  part, 
the  whole  of  it  falls  to  the  ground,  because  that  evidence  never 
was  given.  Instead  of  this,  a  small  number  of  persons,  not  more 
than  eight  or  nine,  are  introduced  as  proxies  for  the  whole  world, 
to  say  they  saw  it,  and  all  the  rest  of  the  world  are  called  upon  tc 
believe  it.  But  it  appears  that  Thomas  did  not  believe  the  res- 
urrection ;  and,  as  they  say  would  not  believe  without  having 
ocular  and  manual  demonstration  himself.  So  nel  her  will  /,  and 
the  reason  is  equally  as  good  for  me,  and  for  eveiy  other  person, 
as  for  Thomas. 

It  is  in  vain  to  attempt  to  palliate  or  disguise  this  matter.  The 
story,  so  far  as  relates  to  the  supernatural  part,  has  every  mark  o 
fraud  and  imposition  stamped  upon  the  face  of  it.  Who  were  the 
authors  of  it  is  as  impossible  for  us  now  to  know,  as  it  is  for  us  to  be 
assured,  that  the  books  in  which  the  account  is  related,  were  writ- 
ten by  the  persons  whose  names  they  bear  ;  the  best  surviving  ev- 
idence we  now  have  respecting  this  affair  is  the  Jews.  They  are 
regularly  descended  from  the  people  who  lived  in  the  times  this 
resurrection  and  ascension  is  said  to  have  happened,  and  they  say, 
it  is  not  true.  It  has  long  appeared  to  me  a  strange  inconsistency' 
to  cite  the  Jews  as  a  proof  of  the  truth  of  the  story.  It  is  just  the 
same  as  if  a  man  were  to  say,  I  will  prove  the  truth  of  what  I  have 
told  you,  by  producing  the  people  who  say  it  is  false. 

That  such  a  person  as  Jesus  Christ  existed,  and  that,  he  was 
crucified,  which  was  the  mode  of  execution  at  that  day,  are  histori- 
cal relations  strictly  within  the  limits  of  probability.  He  preached 
most  excellent  morality,  and  the  equality  of  man  ;  but  he  preached 
also  against  the  corruptions  and  avarice  of  the  Jewish  priests,  and 
this  brought  upon  him  the  hatred  and  vengeance  of  the  whole  order 
of  priesthood.  The  accusation  which  those  priests  brought  against 
him,  was  that  of  sedition  and  conspiracy  against  the  Roman  gov- 
ernment, to  which  the  Jews  were  then  subject  and  tributary  ; 
and  it  is  not  improbable  that  the  Roman  government  might  have 
some  secret  apprehensions  of  the  effects  of  his  doctrines  as  wel 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

as  the  Jewish  priests  ;  neither  is  it  improbable  that  Jesus  Christ 
had  in  contemplation  the  delivery  »f  the  Jewish  nation  from  the 
bondage  of  the  Romans.  Between  the  two,  however,  this  virtu- 
ous reformer  and  revolutionist  lost  his  life. 

It  is  upon  this  plain  narrative  of  facts,  together  with  another 
case  I  am  going  to  mention,  that  the  Christian  Mythologists,  call- 
ing themselves  the  Christian  Church,  have  erected  their  fable, 
which  for  absurdity  and  extravagance  is  not  exceeded  by  any 
thing  that  is  to  be  found  in  the  mythology  of  the  ancients. 

The  ancient  Mythologists  tell  us  that  the  race  of  Giants  made 
war  against  Jupiter,  and  that  one  of  them  threw  an  hundred  rocks 
against  him  at  one  throw  ;  that  Jupiter  defeated  him  with  thunder, 
and  confined  him  afterwards  under  Mount  JEtna,  and  that  every 
time  the  Giant  turns  himself,  Mount  jEtna  belches  fire. 

It  is  here  easy  to  see  that  the  circumstance  of  the  mountain, 
that  of  its  being  a  volcano,  suggested  the  idea  of  the  fable  ;  and 
that  the  fable  is  made  to  fit  and  wind  itself  up  with  that  circum- 
stance. 

The  Christian  Mythologists  tell  us,  that  their  Satan  made  war 
against  the  Almighty,  who  defeated  him,  and  confined  him  after- 
wards, not  under  a  mountain,  but  in  a  pit.  It  is  here  easy  to  sec 
that  the  first  fable  suggested  the  idea  of  the  second  ;  for  the  fable 
of  Jupiter  and  the  Giants  was  told  many  hundred  years  before 
that  of  Satan. 

Thus  far  the  ancient  and  the  Christian  Mythologists  differ  very 
little  from  each  other.  But  the  latter  have  contrived  to  carry  the 
matter  much  farther.  They  have  contrived  to  connect  the  fabu- 
lous part  of  the  story  of  Jesus  Christ  with  the  fable  originating 
from  Mount  ./Etna  ;  and,  in  order  to  make  all  the  parts  of  the 
story  tie  together,  they  have  taken  to  their  aid  the  traditions  of 
the  Jews;  for  the  Christian  mythology  is  made  up  partly  from  the 
ancient  mythology,  and  partly  from  the  Jewish  ^raditions. 

The  Christian  Mythologists,  after  having  confined  Satan  in  a 
pit,  were  obliged  to  let  him  out  again,  to  bring  on  the  sequel  of 
the  fable.  He  is  then  introduced  into  the  garden  of  Eden  in  the 
shapo  of  a  snake  or  a  serpent,  and  in  that  shape  he  enters  into 
familiar  conversation  with  Eve,  who  is  no  way  surprised  to  hear 
a  snake  talk  ;  and  the  issue  of  this  tete-a-tete  is,  that  he  per- 
suades her  to  eat  an  apple,  and  the  eating  of  that  apple  damns  all 
mankind. 

After  giving  Satan  this  triumph  over  the  whole  creation,  one 
would  have  supposed  that  the  church  Mythologists  would  have 
been  kind  enough  to  send  him  back  again  to  the  pit ;  or,  "if  they 
had  not  done  this,  that  they  would  have  put  a  mountain  upon  him, 
(for  they  say  that  their  faith  can  remove  a  mountain)  or  have  put 
him  under  a  mountain,  as  the  former  Mythologists  had  done,  to 
prevent,  his  getting  again  among  the  women,  and  doing  more 
But  instead  of  this,  they  leave  him  at  large,  without 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  33 

even  obliging  him  to  give  his  parole — the  secret  of  which  is,  that 
they  could  not  do  without  him  ;  and  after  being  at  the  trouble  of 
making  him,  they  bribed  him  to  stay.  They  promised  him  ALL 
the  Jews,  ALL  the  Turks  by  anticipation,  nine-tenths  of  the  world 
beside,  and  Mahomet  into  the  bargain.  After  this,  who  can  doubt 
the  bountifulness  of  the  Christian  mythology  ? 

Having  thus  made  an  insurrection  and  a  battle  in  Heaven,  in 
which  none  of  the  combatants  could  be  either  killed  or  wounded — 
put  Satan  into  the  pit — let  him  out  again — given  him  a  triumph  over 
the  whole  creation — damned  all  mankind  by  the  eating  of  an 
apple,  these  Christian  Mythologists  bring  the  two  ends  of  their  fa- 
ble together.  They  represent  this  virtuous  and  amiable  man, 
Jesus  Christ,  to  be  at  once  both  God  and  Man,  and  also  the  Son 
of  God,  celestially  begotten,  on  purpose  to  be  sacrificed,  because 
they  say  that  Eve  in  her  longing  had  eaten  an  apple. 

Putting  aside  every  thing  that  might  excite  laughter  by  its  absur- 
dity, or  detestation  by  its  prophaneness,  and  confining  ourselves 
merely  to  an  examination  of  the  parts,  it  is  impossible  to  conceive 
a  story  more  derogatory  to  the  almighty,  more  inconsistent  with 
his  wisdom,  more  contradictory  to  his  power,  than  this  story 
is. 

In  order  to  make  for  it  a  foundation  to  rise  upon,  the  inventors 
were  under  the  necessity  of  giving  to  the  being,  whom  they  call 
Satan,  a  power  equally  as  great,  if  not  greater  than  they  attribute 
to  the  Almighty.  They  have  not  only  given  him  the  power  of 
liberating  himself  from  the  pit,  after  what  they  call  his  fall,  but 
they  have  made  that  power  increase  afterwards  to  infinity.  Before 
this  fall  they  represent  him  only  as  an  angel  of  limited  existence, 
as  they  represent  the  rest.  After  his  fall,  he  becomes,  by  their 
account,  omnipresent.  He  exists  every  where,  and  at  the  same 
time.  He  occupies  the  :vhole  immensity  of  space. 

Not  content  with  this  deification  of  Satan,  they  represent  him 
as  defeating,  by  stratagem,  in  the  shape  of  an  animal  of  the  creation, 
all  the  power  and  wisdom  of  the  Almighty.  They  represent  him 
as  having  compelled  the  Almighty  to  the  direct  necessity  either  of 
surrendering  the  whole  of  the  creation  to  the  government  and 
sovereignty  of  this  Satan,  or  of  capitulating  for  its  redemption  by 
coming  down  upon  earth,  and  exhibiting  himself  upon  a  cross  in 
the  shape  of  a  man. 

Had  the  inventors  of N  this  story  told  it  the  contrary  way,  that  is, 
had  they  represented  the  Almighty  as  compelling  Satan  fo  exhibit 
himself  on  a  cross,  in  the  shape  of  a  snake,  as  a  punishment  for  nis 
new  transgression,  the  story  would  have  been  less  absurd — less 
contradictory.  But  instead  of  this  they  make  the  transgressor 
triumph,  and  the  Almighty  fall. 

That  many  good  men  have  believed  this  strange  fable,  and  lived 
very  good  lives  under  that  belief  (for  credulity  is  not  a  crime)  is 
what  I  have  no  doubt  of.  In  the  first  place,  they  were  educated  to 


34  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

believe  it,  and  they  would  have  believed  any  thing  else  in  the  same 
manner.  There  are  also  many  who  have  been  so  enthusiastically 
enraptured  by  what  they  conceived  to  be  the  infinite  love  of  God 
to  man,  in  making  a  sacrifice  of  himself,  that  the  vehemence  of  the 
idea  has  forbidden  and  deterred  them  from  examining  into  the  ab- 
surdity and  profaneness  of  the  story.  The  more  unnatural  any 
thing  is,  the  more  is  it  capable  of  becoming  the  object  of  dismal 
admiration. 

But  if  objects  for  gratitude  and  admiration  are  our  desire,  do  they 
not  present  themselves  every  hour  to  our  eyes  ?  Do  we  not  see  a 
fair  creation  prepared  to  receive  us  the  instant  we  are  born — a 
world  furnished  to  our  hands,  that  cost  us  nothing  ?  Is  it  ^e  that 
light  up  the  sun,  that  pour  down  the  rain,  and  fill  the  earth  with 
abundance  ?  Whether  we  sleep  or  wake,  the  vast  machinery  of  the 
universe  still  goes  on.  Are  these  things,  and  the  blessings  they 
indicate  in  future,  nothing  to  us  ?  Can  our  gross  feelings  be  ex- 
cited by  no  other  subjects  than  tragedy  and  suicide  ?  Or  is  the 
gloomy  pride  of  man  become  so  intolerable,  that  nothing  can  flat- 
ter it  but  a  sacrifice  of  the  Creator? 

I  know  this  bold  investigation  will  alarm  many,  but  it  would 
be  paying  too  great  a  compliment  to  their  credulity  to  forbear  it  up- 
on that  account ;  the  times  and  the  subject  demand  it  to  be  done. 
The  suspicion  that  the  theory  of  what  is  called  the  Christian  church 
is  fabulous,  is  becoming  very  extensive  in  all  countries  ;  and  it  will 
be  a  consolation  to  men  staggering  under  that  suspicion,  and 
doubting  what  to  believe  and  what  to  disbelieve,  to  see  the  subject 
freely  investigated.  I  therefore  pass  on  to  an  examination  of  the 
books  called  the  Old  and  New  Testament. 

These  books,  beginning  with  Genesis  and  ending  with  Revela- 
tion (which  by  the  bye  is  a  book  of  riddles  that  requires  a  revela- 
tion to  explain  it)  are,  we  are  told,  the  word  of  God.  It  is,  there- 
fore, proper  for  us  to  know  who  told  us  so,  that  we  may  know  what 
credit  to  give  to  the  report.  The  answer  to  this  question  is,  that 
nobody  can  tell,  except  that  we  tell  one  another  so.  The  case, 
however,  historically  appears  to  be  as  follows: — 

When  the  church  Mythologists  established  their  system,  they 
collected  all  the  writings  they  could  find,  and  managed  them  as 
they  pleased.  It  is  a  matter  altogether  of  uncertainty  to  us 
whether  such  of  the  writings  as  now  appear  under  the  name  of 
the  Old  and  New  Testament,  are  in  the  same  state  in  which  those 
collectors  say  they  found  them,  or  whether  they  added,  altered, 
abridged,  or  dressed  them  up. 

Be  this  as  it  may,  they  decided  by  vote  which  of  the  books  out 
of  the  collection  they  had  made,  should  be  the  WORD  OF  GOD,  and 
which  should  not.  They  rejected  several ;  they  voted  others  to 
be  doubtful,  such  as  the  books  called  the  Apocrypha  ;  and  those 
books  which  had  a  majority  of  votes,  were  voted  to  be  the  word 
of  God.  Had  thev  voted  otherwise,  all  the  people,  since  calling 


THE    AGE    OP   REASON.  85 

themselves  Christians,  had  believed  otherwise — for  the  belief  of 
the  one  comes  from  the  vote  of  the  other.  Who  the  people  were 
that  did  all  this,  we  know  nothing  of,  they  called  themselves  by  the 
general  name  of  the  Church  ;  and  this  is  all  we  know  of  the  matter. 

As  we  have  no  other  external  evidence  or  authority  for  believ- 
ing those  books  to  be  the  word  of  God  than  what  I  have  mentioned, 
which  is  no  evidence  or  authority  at  all,  I  come,  in  the  next  place, 
to  examine  the  internal  evidence  contained  in  the  books  them- 
selves. 

In  the  former  part  of  this  Essay,  I  have  spoken  of  revelation- — 
I  now  proceed  further  with  that  subject,  for  the  purpose  of  apply- 
ing it  to  the  books  in  question. 

Revelation  is  a  communication  of  something,  which  the  person, 
to  whom  that  thing  is  revealed,  did  not  know  before.  For  if  I 
have  done  a  thing,  or  seen  it  done,  it  needs  no  revelation  to  tell  me 
I  have  done  it,  or  seen  it,  nor  to  enable  me  to  tell  R,  or  to  write  it. 
Revelation,  therefore,  cannot  be  applied  to  any  thing  done  upon 
earth,  of  which  man  is  himself  the  actor  or  the  witness  ;  and  con- 
sequently all  the  historical  and  anecdotal  part  of  the  Bible,  which 
is  almost  the  whole  of  it,  is  not  within  the  meaning  and  compass 
of  the  word  revelation,  and  therefore  is  not  the  word  of  God. 

When  Sampson  ran  off  with  the  gate-posts  of  Gaza,  if  he  ever 
did  so,  (and  whether  he  did  or  not  is  nothing  to  us)  or  when  he 
visited  his  Delilah,  or  caught  his  foxes,  or  did  any  thing  else,  what 
has  revelation  to  do  with  these  things  ?  If  they  were  facts,  he 
could  tell  them  himself ;  or  his  secretary,  if  he  kept  one,  could 
write  them,  if  they  were  worth  either  telling  or  writing  ;  and  if 
they  were  fictious,  revelation  could  not  make  them  true  ;  and 
whether  true  or  not,  we  are  neither  the  better  nor  the  wiser  for 
knowing  them.  When  we  contemplate  the  immensity  of  that  Be- 
ing, who  directs  and  governs  the  incomprehensible  WHOLE,  of 
which  the  utmost  ken  of  human  sight  can  discover  but  a  part,  we 
ought  to  feel  shame  at  calling  such  paltry  stories  the  word  of  God. 

As  to  the  account  of  the  Creation,  with  which  the  book  of  Gen- 
esis opens,  it  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  a  tradition  which 
the  Israelites  had  among  them  before  they  came  into  Egypt ;  and 
after  their  departure  from  that  country,  they  put  it  at  the  head  of 
their  history,  without  telling  (as  it  is  most  probable)  that  they  did 
not  know  how  they  came  by  it.  The  manner  in  which  the  ac- 
count opens,  shows  it  to  be  traditionary.  It  begins  abruptly  :  it 
is  nobody  that  speaks  ;  it  is  nobody  that  hears  ;  it  is  addressed  to 
nobody  ;  it  has  neither  first,  second,  or  third  person ;  it  has  every 
criterion  of  being  a  tradition,  it  has  no  voucher.  Moses  does  not 
take  it  upon  himself  by  introducing  it  with  the  formality  that  he 
uses  on  other  occasions,  such  as  that  of  saying,  "  The  Lord  spake 
unto  Moses )  saying." 

Why  it  has  been  called  the  Mosaic  account  of  the  Creaton,  I 
am  at  a  loss  to  conceive.  Moses,  I  believe,  was  too  good  a  judge 


36  THE    AGE    OF    REASON 

of  such  subjects  to  put  his  name  to  that  account.  He  had  been 
educated  among  the  Egyptians,  who  were  a  people  as  well  skilled 
in  science,  and  particularly  in  astronomy,  as  any  people  of  their 
day  ;  and  the  silence  and  caution  that  Moses  observes,  in  not  au- 
thenticating the  account,  is  a  good  negative  evidence  that  he 
neither  told  it  nor  believed  it. — The  case  is,  that  every  nation  of 
people  has  been  world-makers,  and  the  Israelites  had  as  much 
right  to  set  up  the  trade  of  world-making  as  any  of  the  rest ;  and 
as  Moses  was  not  an  Israelite,  he  might  not  choose  to  contradict 
the  tradition.  The  account,  however,  is  harmless  ;  and  this  is 
more  than  can  be  said  of  many  other  parts  of  the  Bible. 

Whenever  we  read  the  obscene  stories,  the  voluptuous  debau- 
cheries, the  cruel  and  torturous  executions,  the  unrelenting  vin- 
dictiveness,  with  which  more  than  half  the  Bible  is  filled,  it  would 
be  more  consistent  that  we  called  it  the  word  of  a  Demon,  than 
the  word  of  Go%.  It  is  a  history  of  wickedness,  that  has  served 
to  corrupt  and  brutalize  mankind  ;  and,  for  my  own  part,  I  sin- 
cerely detest  it  as  I  detest  every  thing  that  is  cruel. 

We  scarcely  meet  with  any  thing,  a  few  phrases  excepted,  but 
what  deserves  either  our  abhorrence  or  our  contempt,  till  we  come 
to  the  miscellaneous  parts  of  the  Bible.  In  the  anonymous  pub- 
lications, the  Psalms,  and  the  Book  of  Job,  more  particularly  in 
the  latter,  we  find  a  great  deal  of  elevated  sentiment  reverentially 
expressed  of  the  power  and  benignity  of  the  Almighty  ;  but  they 
stand  on  no  higher  rank  than  many  other  compositions  on  similar 
subjects,  as  well  before  that  time  as  since. 

The  Proverbs  which  are  said  to  be  Solomon's,  though  most 
probably  a  collection  (because  they  discover  a  knowledge  of  life, 
which  his  situation  excluded  him  from  knowing)  are  an  instructive 
table  of  ethics.  They  are  inferior  in  keenness  to  the  proverbs  of 
the  Spaniards,  and  not  more  wise  and  economical  than  those  of 
the  American  Franklin. 

All  the  remaining  parts  of  the  Bible,  generally  known  by  the 
name  of  the  Prophets,  are  the  works  of  the  Jewish  poets  and  itine- 
rant preachers,  who  mixed  poetry,  anecdote,  and  devotion  to- 
gether— and  those  works  still  retain  the  air  and  style  of  poetry, 
though  in  translation.* 


*  As  there  are  many  renders  who  do  not  see  that  a  composition  is  poetry, 
be  in  rhyme,  it  is  for  their  information  that  I  add  this  note. 

Poetry  consists  principally  in  two  tilings — imagery  and  composition.  The  composi- 
tion of  poetry  differs  from  that  of  prose  in  the  manner  of  mixing  long  and  short  sylla- 
bles together.  Take  a  long  syllable  out  of  a  line  of  poetry,  and  put  a  short  one  in 
the  room  of  it,  or  put  a  long  syllable  where  a  short  one  should  be,  and  that  line  will 
lose  its  poetical  harmony.  It  will  have  an  effect  upon  the  line  like  that  of  misplacing 
a  note  in  a  song. 

The  imagery  in  those  books,  called  the  prophets,  appertains  altogether  to  poetry. 
It  is  lictitious,  and  often  extravagant,  and  not  admissible  in  any  other  kind  of  writing 
than  poetry. 

To  show  that  these  writings  are  composed  in  poetical  numbers,  I  will  take  ten 
syllables,  as  they  stand  in  the  book,  and  make  a  line  of  the  same  number  of  syllables 


THE   AGE    OF    REASON.  37 

There  is  not,  throughout  the  whole  book  called  the  Bible,  any 
word  that  describes  to  us  what  we  call  a  poet,  nor  any  word  that 
describes  what  we  call  poetry.  The  case  is,  that  the  word 
prophet,  to  which  latter  times  have  affixed  a  new  idea,  was  the  Bible 
word  for  poet,  and  the  word  prophesying  meant  the  art  of  making 
poetry.  It  also  meant  the  art  of  playing  poetry  to  a  tune  upon  any 
instrument  of  music. 

We  read  of  prophesying  with  pipes,  tabrets,  and  horns — of 
prophesying  with  harps,  with  psalteries,  with  cymbals,  and  with 
every  other  instrument  of  music  then  in  fashion.  Were  we  now  to 
speak  of  prophesying  with  a  fiddle,  or  with  a  pipe  and  tabor,  the 
expression  would  have  -no  meaning,  or  would  appear  ridiculous, 
and  to  some  people  contemptuous,  because  we  have  changed  the 
meaning  of  the  word. 

We  are  told  of  Saul  being  among  the  prophets ,  and  also  that  he 
prophesied  ;  but  we  are  not  told  what  they  prophesied  nor  what  he 
prophesied.  The  case  is,  there  was  nothing  to  tell ;  for  these 
prophets  were  a  company  of  musicians  and  poets,  and  Saul  joined 
in  the  concert,  and  this  was  called  prophesying. 

The  account  given  of  this  affair,  in  the  book  called  Samuel,  is, 
that  Saul  met  a  company  of  prophets  ;  a  whole  company  of  them  ! 
coming  down  with  a  psaltery,  a  tabret,  a  pipe,  and  a  harp,  and  that 
they  prophesied,  and  that  he  prophesied  with  them.  But  it  ap- 
pears afterwards,  that  Saul  prophesied  badly ;  that  is,  performed 
his  part  badly  ;  for  it  is  said,  that,  an  "evil  spirit  from  God"*  came 
upon  Saul,  and  he  prophesied. 

Now,  were  there  no  other  passage  in  the  book,  called  the  Bible, 
than  this,  to  demonstrate  to  us  that  we  have  lost  the  original  mean- 
ing of  the  \vordprophcsy,  and  substituted  another  meaning  in  its 
place,  this  alone  would  be  sufficient  ;  for  it  is  impossible  to  use 
and  apply  the  word  prophesy,  in  the  place  it  is  here  used  and  ap- 
plied, if  we  give  to  it  the  sense  which  latter  times  have  affixed  to 
it.  The  manner  in  which  it  is  here  used  strips  it  of  all  religious 
meaning,  and  shows  that  a  man  might  then  be  a  prophet,  or  might 

(heroic  measure)  that  shall  rhyme  with  the  last  word.  It  will  then  be  seen  that  the 
composition  of  those  books  is  poetical  measure.  The  instance  I  shall  produce  is 
from  Isaiah  : — 

"  Hear,  O  ye  heavens,  and  give  ear,  O  earth  /'* 

'Tis  God  himself  that  calls  attention  forth. 

Another  instance  I  shall  quote  is  from  the  mournful  Jeremiah,  to  which  I  shall  add 
two  other  lines,  for  the  purpose  of  carrying  out  the  figure,  and  showing  the  intention 
of  the  poet. 

'*  O  /  that  mine  head  were  waters  and  mine  eyee" 

Were  fountains,  flowing  like  the  liquid  skies  ; 

Then  would  I  give  the  mighty  flood  release, 

And  weep  a  deluge  for  the  human  race. 

*  As  those  men,  who  call  themselves  divines  and  commentators,  are  very  fond  of 
puzzling  one  another,  I  leave  them  to  contest  the  meaning  of  the  first  part  of  the 
phrase,  that  of  an  evil  spirit  of  God.  I  keep  to  my  text — I  keep  to  the  meaning 
of  the  word  prophesy. 

4 


38  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

prophesy,  as  he  may  now  be  a  poet  or  musician,  without  any  re- 
gard to  the  morality  or  immorality  of  his  character.  The  word  was 
originally  a  term  of  science,  promiscuously  applied  to  poetry  and 
to  music,  and  not  restricted  to  any  subject  upon  which  poetry  and 
music  might  be  exercised. 

Deborah  and  Barak  are  called  prophets,  not  because  they  pre- 
dicted any  thing,  but  because  they  composed  the  poem  or  song  that 
bears  their  name,  in  celebration  of  an  act  already  done.  David  is 
ranked  among  the  prophets,  for  he  was  a  musician,  and  was  also 
reputed  to  be  (though  perhaps  very  erroneously)  the  author  of  the 
Psalms.  But  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  are  not  called  prophets; 
it  does  not  appear  from  any  accounts  we  have  that  they  could  either 
sing,  play  music,  or  make  poetry. 

We  are  told  of  the  greater  and  the  lesser  prophets.  They  might 
as  well  tell  us  of  the  greater  and  the  lesser  God  ;  for  there  cannot 
be  degrees  in  prophesying,  consistently  with  its  modern  sense. — 
But  there  are  degrees  in  poetry,  and  therefore  the  phrase  is  recon- 
cileable  to  the  case,  when  we  understand  by  it  the  greater  and  the 
lesser  poets. 

It  is  altogether  unnecessary,  after  this,  to  offer  any  observations 
upon  what  those  men,  styled  prophets,  have  written.  The  axe 
goes  at  once  to  the  root,  by  showing  that  the  original  meaning  of  the 
word  has  been  mistaken,  and  consequently  all  the  inferences  that 
have  been  drawn  from  those  books,  the  devotional  respect  that  has 
been  paid  to  them,  and  the  laboured  commentaries  that  have  been 
written  upon  them,  under  that  mistaken  meaning,  are  not  worth 
disputing  about.  In  many  things,  however,  the  writings  of  the 
Jewish  poets  deserve  a  better  fate  than  that  of  being  bound  up,  as 
they  now  are,  with  the  trash  that  accompanies  them,  under  the 
abused  name  of  the  word  of  God. 

If  we  permit  ourselves  to  conceive  right  ideas  of  things,  we  must 
necessarily  affix  the  idea,  not  only  of  unchangeableness,  but  of  the 
utter  impossibility  of  any  change  taking  place,  by  any  means  or  ac- 
cident whatever,  in  that  which  we  would  honour  with  the  name  of 
the  word  of  God  ;  and  therefore  the  word  of  God  cannot  exist  in 
any  written  or  human  language. 

The  continually  progressive  change  to  which  the  meaning  of 
words  is  subject,  the  want  of  an  universal  language  which  renders 
translation  necessary,  the  errors  to  which  translations  are  again 
subject,  the  mistakes  of  copyists  and  printers,  together  with  the 
possibility  of  wilful  alteration,  are  of  themselves  evidences  that  hu- 
man language,  whether  in  speech  or  in  print,  cannot  be  the  vehicle 
of  the  word  of  God  The  word  of  God  exits  in  something  else. 

Did  the  book,  called  the  Bible,  excel  in  purity  of  ideas  and  ex- 
pression all  the  books  now  extant  in  the  world,  I  would  not  take 
it  for  my  rule  of  faith,  as  being  the  word  of  God,  because  the  pos- 
sibility would  nevertheless  exist  of  my  being  imposed  upon.  But 
when  I  see  throughout  the  greatest  part  of  this  book,  scarcely  any 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  39 

thing  but  a  history  of  the  grossest  vices,  and  a  collection  of  the 
most  paltry  and  contemptible  tales,  I  cannot  dishonor  my  Creator 
by  calling  it  by  his  name. 

Thus  much  for  the  Bible  ;  I  now  go  on  to  the  book  called  the 
New  Testament.  The  New  Testament  !  that  is,  the  new  will,  as 
if  there  could  be  two  wills  of  the  Creator. 

Had  it  been  the  object  or  the  intention  of  Jesus  Christ  to  estab- 
lish a  new  religion,  he  would  undoubtedly  have  written  the  system 
himself,  or  procured  it  to  be  written  in  his  life  time.  But  there  is 
no  publication  extant  authenticated  with  his  name.  All  the  books 
called  the  New  Testament  were  written  after  his  death.  He  was 
a  Jew  by  birth  and  by  profession  ;  and  he  was  the  son  of  God  in 
like  manner  that  every  other  person  is — for  the  Creator  is  the  Fa- 
ther of  All. 

The  first  four  books,  called  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John, 
do  not  give  a  history  of  the  life  of  Jesus  Christ,  but  only  detached 
anecdotes  of  him.  It  appears  from  these  books,  that  the  whole 
time  of  his  being  a  preacher  was  not  more  than  eighteen  months  ; 
and  it  was  only  during  this  short  time,  that  those  men  became  ac- 
quainted with  him.  They  make  mention  of  him  at  the  age  of 
twelve  years,  sitting,  they  say,  among  the  Jewish  doctors,  asking 
and  answering  them  questions.  As  this  was  several  years  before 
their  acquaintance  with  him  began,  it  is  most  probable  they  had 
this  anecdote  from  his  parents.  From  this  time  there  is  no  ac- 
count of  him  for  about  sixteen  years.  Where  he  lived,  or  how 
he  employed  himself  during  this  interval,  is  not  known.  Most 
probably  he  was  working  at  his  father's  trade,  which  was  that  of 
a  carpenter.  It  does  not  appear  that  he  had  any  school  education, 
and  the  probability  is,  that  he  could  not  write,  for  his  parents  were 
extremely  poor,  as  appears  from  their  not  being  able  to  pay  for  a 
bed  when  he  was  born. 

It  is  somewhat  curious  that  the  three  persons  whose  names  are 
the  most  universally  recordedj  were  of  very  obscure  parentage. 
Moses  was  a  foundling  ;  Jesus  Christ  was  born  in  a  stable  ;  and 
Mahomet  was  a  mule-driver.  The  first  and  the  last  of  these  men, 
were  founders  of  different  systems  of  religion  ;  but  Jesus  Christ 
founded  no  new  system.  He  called  men  to  the  practice  of  moral 
virtues,  and  the  belief  of  one  God.  The  great  trait  in  his  char- 
acter is  philanthropy. 

The  manner  in  which  he  was  apprehended,  shows  that  he  was 
not  much  known  at  that  time  ;  and  it  shows  also,  that  the  meetings 
he  then  held  with  his  followers  were  in  secret  ;  and  that  he  had 
given  over  or  suspended  preaching  publicly.  Judas  could  no  oth- 
erwise betray  him  than  by  giving  information  where  he  was,  and 
pointing  him  out  to  the  officers  that  went  to  arrest  him  ;  and  the 
reason  for  employing  and  paying  Judas  to  do  this  could  arise  only 
from  the  causes  already  mentioned,  that  of  his  not  being  much 
known,  and  living  concealed. 


40  THE    AGE    OF    REASON 

The  idea  of  his  concealment,  not  only  agrees  very  ill  with  hia 
reputed  divinity  but  associates  with  it  something  of  pusillanimity  ; 
and  his  being  betrayed,  or  in  other  words,  his  being  apprehended, 
on  the  information  of  one  of  his  followers,  shows  that  he  did  not 
intend  to  be  apprehended,  and  consequently  that  he  did  not  intend 
to  he  crucified. 

The  Christian  Mythologists  tell  us,  that  Christ  died  for  the  sins 
of  the  world,  and  that  he  came' on  purpose  to  die.     Would  it  not 
then  have  been  the  same  if  he  had  died  of  a  fever  or  of  the  small 
pox,  of  old  age,  or  of  any  thing  else  ? 

The  declaratory  sentence  which,  they  say,  was  passed  upon 
Adam,  in  case  he  eat  of  the  apple,  was  not,  that  thou  shalt  surely  be 
crucified,  but  thou  shall  surely  die — the  sentence  of  death,  and  not 
the  manner  of  dying*  Crucifixion,  therefore,  or  any  other  par- 
ticular manner  of  dying,  made  no  part  of  the  sentence  that  Adam 
was  to  suffer,  and  consequently,  even  upon  their  own  tactics,  it 
could  make  no  part  of  the  sentence  that  Christ  was  to  suffer  in  the 
room  of  Adam.  A  fever  would  have  done  as  well  as  a  cross,  if 
there  was  any  occasion  for  either. 

This  sentence  of  death,  which  they  tell  us,  was  thus  passed  upon 
Adam,  must  either  have  meant  dying  naturally,  that  is,  ceasing  to 
live,  or  have  meant  what  these  Mythologists  call  damnation  ;  and, 
consequently,  the  act  of  dying  on  the  part  of  Jesus  Christ,  must, 
according  to  their  system,  apply  as  a  prevention  to  one  or  other  of 
these  two  things  happening  to  Adam  and  to  us. 

That  it  does  not  prevent  our  dying  is  evident,  because  we  all 
die  ;  and  if  their  accounts  of  longevity  be  true,  men  die  faster  since . 
the  crucifixion  than  before  ;  and  with  respect  to  the  second  ex- 
planation, (including  with  it  the  natural  death  of  Jesus  Christ  as 
a  substitute  for  the  eternal  death  or  damnation  of  all  mankind)  it 
is  impertinently  representing  the  Creator  as  coming  off,  or  revok- 
ing the  sentence,  by  a  pun  or  a  quibble  upon  the  word  death. 
That  manufacturer  of  quibbles,  St.  Paul,  if  he  wrote  the  books 
that  bear  his  name,  has  helped  this  quibble  on  by  making  another 
quibble  upon  the  word  Mam.  He  makes  there  to  be  two  Adams  ; 
the  one  who  sins  in  fact;  and  suffers  by  proxy  ;  the  other  who  sins 
by  proxy,  and  suffers  in  fact.  A  religion  thus  interlarded  with  quib- 
ble, subterfuge,  and  pun,  has  a  tendency  to  instruct  its  professors 
in  the  practice  of  these  arts.  They  acquire  the  habit  without  be- 
ing aware  of  the  cause. 

If  Jesus  Christ  was  the  being  which  those  Mythologists  tell  us  he 
was,  and  that  he  came  into  this  world  to  suffer,  which  is  a  word 
they  sometimes  use  instead  of  to  die,  the  only  real  suffering  he 
could  have  endured,  would  have  been  to  live.  His  existence  here 
was  a  state  of  exilement  or  transportation  from  Heaven,  and  the 
way  back  to  his  original  country  was  to  die. — In  fine,  every  thing 
in  this  strange  system  is  the  reverse  of  what  it  pretends  to  be.  It 
is  the  reverse  of  truth,  and  I  become  so  tired  with  examining  into 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  41 

its  inconsistences  and  absurdities,  that  I  hasten  to  the  conclusion 
of  it,  in  order  to  precede  something  better. 

How  much,  or  what  parts  of  the  books  called  the  New  Testa- 
ment, were  written  by  the  persons  whose  names  they  bear,  is  what 
we  can  know  nothing  of,  neither  are  we  certain  in  what  language 
they  were  originally  written.  The  matters  they  now  contain  may 
be  classed  under  two  heads — anecdote  and  epistolary  correspon- 
dence. 

The  four  books  already  mentioned,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and 
John,  are  altogether  anecdotal.  They  relate  events  after  they  had 
taken  place.  They  tell  what  Jesus  Christ  did  and  said,  and  what 
others  did  and  said  to  him  ;  and  in  several  instances  they  relate  the 
same  event  differently.  Revelation  is  necessarily  out  of  the  ques- 
tion with  respect  to  those  books  ;  not  only  because  of  the  disagree- 
ment of  the  writers,  but  because  revelation  cannot  be  applied  to  the 
relating  of  facts  by  the  persons  who  saw  them  done,  nor  to  the  re- 
lating or  recording  of  any  discourse  or  conversation  by  those  who 
heard  it.  The  book  called  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  (an  anonymous 
work)  belongs  also  to  the  anecdotal  part. 

All  the  other  parts  of  the  New  Testament,  except  the  book  of 
enigmas,  called  the  Revelations,  are  a  collection  of  letters  under 
the  name  of  epistles  ;  and  the  forgery  of  letters  has  been  such'  a 
common  practice  in  the  world^at  the  probability  is  at  least  equal, 
\rhether  they  are  genuine  or  forged.  One  thing,  however,  is  much 
less  equivocal,  which  is,  that  out  of  the  matters  contained  in  those 
books,  together  with  the  assistance  of  some  old  stories,  the  church 
has  set  up  a  system  of  religion  very  contradictory  to  the  character 
of  the  person  whose  name  it  bears.  It  has  set  up  a  religion  of 
pomp  and  of  revenue,  in  pretended  imitation  of  a  person  whose  life 
was  humility  arid  poverty. 

The  invention  of  purgatory,  and  of  the  releasing  of  souls  there- 
from, by  prayers,  bought  of  the  church  with  money  ;  the  selling  of 
pardons,  dispensations,  and  indulgences,  are  revenue  laws,  with- 
out bearing  that  name  or  carrying  that  appearance.  But  the  case 
nevertheless  is,  that  those  things  derive  their  origin  from  the  pa- 
roxysm of  the  crucifixion  and  the  theory  deduced  therefrom,  which 
was,  that  one  person  could  stand  in  the  place  of  another,  and  could 
perform  meritorious  services  for  him.  The  probability,  there- 
fore, is,  that  the  whole  theory  or  doctrine  of  what  is  called  the  re- 
demption (which  is  said  to  have  been  accomplished  by  the  act  of 
one  person  in  the  room  of  another)  was  originally  fabricated  on 
purpose  to  bring  forward  and  build  all  those  secondary  and  pecu- 
niary redemptions  upon  ;  and  that  the  passages  in  the  books  upon 
which  the  idea  of  theory  of  redemption  is  built,  have  been  manu- 
factured and  fabricated  for  that  purpose.  Why  are  we  to  give 
this  church  credit,  when  she  tells  us  that  those  books  are  genuine 
in  every  part,  any  more  than  we  give  her  credit  for  every  thing 
else  she  has  told  us  ;  or  for  the  miracles  she  says  she  has  pcr- 
4* 


42  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

formed  i  That  she  could  fabricate  writings  is  certain,  because  she 
could  write  ;  and  the  composition  of  the  writings  in  question  is  of 
that  kind  that  any  body  might  do  it ;  and  that  she  did  fabricate  them 
is  not  more  inconsistent  with  probability,  than  that  she  should  tell- 
us,  as  she  has  done,  that  she  could  and  did  work  miracles. 

Since  then  no  external  evidence  can,  at  this  long  distance  of 
time,  be  produced  to  prove  whether  the  church  fabricated  the  doc- 
trines called  redemption  or  not,  (for  such  evidence,  whether  for  or 
against,  would  be  subject  to  the  same  suspicion  of  being  fabricat- 
ed) the  case  can  only  be  referred  to  the  internal  evidence  which 
the  thing  carries  of  itself ;  and  this  affords  a  very  strong  presump- 
tion of  its  being  a  fabrication.  For  the  internal  evidence  is,  that 
the  theory  or  doctrine  of  redemption  has  for  its  basis  an  idea  of 
pecuniary  justice,  and  not  that  of  moral  justice. 

If  I  owe  a  person  money,  and  cannot  pay  him,  and  he  threat- 
ens to  put  me  in  prison,  another  person  can  take  the  debt  upon 
himself,  and  pay  it  for  me  ;  but  if  I  have  committed  a  crime,  ev- 
ery circumstance  of  the  case  is  changed,  moral  justice  cannot  take 
the  innocent  for  the  guilty,  even  if  the  innocent  would  offer  itself! 
To  suppose  justice  to  do  this,  is  to  destroy  the  principle  of  its  ex- 
istence, which  is  the  thing  itself;  it  is  then  no  longer  justice  ;  it 
is  indiscriminate  revenge. 

This  single  reflection  will  show  that  the  doctrine  of  redemption 
is  founded  on  a  mere  pecuniary  idea,  corresponding  to  thai  of  a 
debt,  which  another  person  might  pay  ;  and  as  this  pecuniary  idea 
corresponds  again  with  the  system  of  second  redemptions,  obtained 
through  the  means  of  money  given  to  the  church  for  pardons,  the 
probability  is,  that  the  same  persons  fabricated  both  one  and  the 
other  of  those  theories  ;  and  that,  in  truth,  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  redemption  ;  that  it  is  fabulous,  and  that  man  stands  in  the  same 
relative  condition  with  his  Maker  he  ever  did  stand,  since  man  ex- 
isted, and  that  it  is  his  greatest  consolation  to  think  so. 

Let  him  believe  this,  and  he  will  live  more  consistently  and  mo- 
rally than  by  any  other  system  ;  it  is  by  his  being  taught  to  con- 
template himself  as  an  out-law,  as  an  out-cast,  as  a  beggar,  as  a 
mumper,  as  one  thrown,  as  it  were,  on  a  dunghill,  at  an  immense 
distance  from  his  Creator,  and  who  must  make  his  approaches  by 
creeping  and  cringing  to  intermediate  beings,  that  he  conceives 
either  a  contemptuous  disregard  for  every  thing  under  the  name 
of  religion,  or  becomes  indifferent,  or  turns,  what  he  calls  devout. 
In  the  latter  case,  he  consumes  his  life  in  grief,  or  the  affectation 
of  it ;  his  prayers  are  reproaches  ;  his  humility  is  ingratitude  ;  he 
calls  himself  a  worm  ;  and  the  fertile  earth  a  dunghill ;  and  all  the 
blessings  of  life,  by  the  thankless  name  of  vanities ;  he  despises 
the  choicest  gift  of  God  to  man,  the  GIFT  OF  REASON  ;  and  having 
endeavored  to  force  upon  himself  the  belief  of  a  system  against 
which  reason  revolts,  he  ungratefully  calls  it  human  reason,  as  if 
p.n  could  give  reason  to  himself. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  43 

Yet,  with  all  this  strange  appearance  of  humility,  and  this  con- 
tempt for  human  reason,  he  ventures  into  the  boldest  presump- 
tions ;  he  finds  fault  with  every  thing  ;  his  selfishness  is  never 
satisfied  ;  his  ingratitude  is  never  at  an  end.  He  takes  on  him- 
self to  direct  the  Almighty  what  to  do,  even  in  the  government  of 
the  universe  ;  he  prays  dictatorially  ;  when  it  is  sun-shine,  he  prays 
for  rain,  and  when  it  is  rain,  he  prays  for  sun-shine  ;  he  follows  the 
same  idea  in  every  thing  that  he  prays  for  ;  for  what  is  the  amount 
of  all  his  prayers,  but  an  attempt  to  make  the  Almighty  change 
his  mind,  and  act  otherwise  than  he  does  ?  It  is  as  if  he  were  to 
say — thou  knowest  not  so  well  as  I. 

But  some  perhaps  will  say — Are  we  to  have  no  word  of  God — 
No  revelation  !  I  answer,  Yes  :  there  is  a  word  of  God  ;  there  is 
a  revelation. 

THE  WORD  OF  GOD  is  THE  CREATION  WE  BEHOLD  :  And  it  is  in 
this  word,  which  no  human  invention  can  counterfeit  or  alter,  that 
God  speaketh  universally  to  man. 

Human  language  is  local  and  changeable,  and  is  therefore  inca- 
pable of  being  used  as  the  means  of  unchangeable  and  universal 
information.  The  idea  that  God  sent  Jesus  (Christ  to  publish,  as 
they  say,  the  glad  tidings  to  all  nations,  from  one  end  of  the  earth 
to  the  other,  is  consistent  only  with  the  ignorance  of  those  who 
knew  nothing  of  the  extent  of  the  world,  and  who  believed,  as 
those  world-saviours  believed,  and  continued  to  believe,  for  seve- 
ral centuries,  (and  that  in  contradiction  to  the  discoveries  of  phi- 
losophers, and  the  experience  of  navigators)  that  the  earth  was 
flat  like  a  trencher  ;  and  that  a  man  might  walk  to  the  end  of 
it. 

But  how  was  Jesus  Christ  to  make  any  thing  known  to  all  na- 
tions ?  He  could  speak  but  one  language,  which  was  Hebrew ; 
and  there  are  in  the  world  several  hundred  languages.  Scarcely 
any  two  nations  speak  the  same  language,  or  understand  each  oth- 
er ;  and  as  to  translations,  every  man  who  knows  any  thing  of  lan- 
guages, knows  that  it  was  impossible  to  translate  from  one  lan- 
guage to  another,  not  only  without  losing  a  great  part  of  the  orig- 
inal, but  frequently  of  mistaking  the  sense  ;  and  besides  all  this, 
the  art  of  printing  was  wholly  unknown  at  the  time  Christ  lived. 

It  is  always  necessary  that  the  means  that  are  to  accomplish 
any  end,  be  equal  to  the  accomplishment  of  that  end,  or  the  end 
cannot  be  accomplished.  It  is  in  this,'  that,  the  difference  between 
finite  and  infinite  power  and  wisdom  discovers  itself.  Man  fre- 
quently fails  in  accomplishing  his  ends,  from  a  natural  inability  of 
the  power  to  the  purpose  ;  and  frequently  from  the  want  of  wis- 
dom to  apply  power  properly.  But  it  is  impossible  for  infinite 
power  and  wisdom  to  fail  as  man  faileth.  The  means  it  useth  are 
always  equal  to  the  end  ;  but  human  language,  more  especially 
as  there  is  not  an  universal  language,  is  incapable  of  being  used 
as  an  universal  means  of  unchangeable  and  uniform  information, 


44  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

and  therefore  it  is  not  the  means'  that  God  useth  in  manifesting 
himself  universally  to  man. 

It  is  only  in  the  CREATION  that  all  our  ideas  and  conceptions  of 
a  word  of  God  can  unite.  The  Creation  speaketh  an  universal 
language,  independently  of  human  speech  or  human  language, 
multiplied  and  various  as  they  be.  It  is  an  ever-existing  original, 
which  every  man  can  read.  It  cannot  be  forged  ;  it  cannot  be 
counterfeited  ;  it  cannot  be  lost ;  it  cannot  be  altered  ;  it  cannot 
be  suppressed.  It  does  not  depend  upon  the  will  of  man  whether 
it  shall  be  published  or  not ;  it  publishes  itself  from  one  end  of 
the  earth  to  the  other.  It  preaches  to  all  nations  and  to  all 
worlds  ;  and  this  word  of  God  reveals  to  man  all  that  is  necessary 
for  man  to  Know  of  God. 

Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  power  ?  We  see  it  in  the  im- 
mensity of  the  Creation.  Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  wis- 
dom ?  We  see  it  in  the  unchangeable  order  by  which  the  incom- 
prehensible whole  is  governed.  Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his 
munificence  ?  We  see  it  in  the  abundance  with  which  he  fills  the 
earth.  Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  mercy  ?  We  see  it  in  his 
not  withholding  that  abundance  even  from  the  unthankful.  In 
fine,  do  we  want  to  know  what  God  is  ?  Search  not  the  book  call- 
ed the  Scripture,  which  any  human  hand  might  make,  but  the 
Scripture  called  the  Creation. 

The  only  idea  man  can  affix  to  the  name  of  God,  is  that  of  a 
first  cause,  the  cause  of  all  things.  And,  incomprehensible  and 
difficult  as  it  is  for  a  man  to  conceive  what  a  first  cause  is,  he  ar- 
rives at  the  belief  of  it,  from  the  tenfold  greater  difficulty  of  dis- 
believing it.  It  is  difficult  beyond  description  to  conceive  that 
space  can  have  no  end  ;  but  it  is  more  difficult  to  conceive  an  end. 
It  is  difficult  beyond  the  power  of  man  to  conceive  an  eternal  du- 
ration of  what  we  call  time  ;  but  it  is  more  impossible  to  conceive 
a  time  when  there  shall  be  no  time.  In  like  manner  of  reasoning, 
every  thing  we  behold  carries  in  itself  the  internal  evidence  that 
it  did  not  make  itself.  Every  man  is  an  evidence  to  himself.,  that 
he  did  not  make  himself;  neither  could  his  father  make  himself, 
nor  his  grandfather,  nor  any  of  his  race  ;  neither  could  any  tree, 
plant,  or  animal  make  itself;  and  it  is  the  conviction  arising  from 
this  evidence,  that  carries  us  on,  as  it  were,  by  necessity,  to  the 
belief  of  a  first  cause  eternally  existing,  of  a  nature  totally  differ- 
ent to  any  material  existence  we  know  of,  and  by  the  power  of 
which  all  things  exist ;  and  this  first  cause  man  calls  God. 

It  is  only  by  the  exercise  of  reason,  that  man  can  discover  God. 
Take  away  that  reason,  and  he  would  be  incapable  of  understand- 
ing any  thing  ;  and,  in  this  case,  it  would  be  just  as  consistent  to 
read  even  the  book  called  the  Bible  to  a  horse  as  to  a  man.  How 
then  is  it  that  those  people  pretend  to  reject  reason  ? 

Almost  the  only  parts  in  the  book  called  the  Bible,  that  convey 
to  us  any  idea  of  God,  are  some  chapters  in  Job,  and  the  19th 


THE    AGE    OP    REASON.  45 

Psalm  ;  I  recollect  no  other.  Those  parts  are  true  deisiical  com- 
positions ;  for  they  treat  of  the  Deity  through  his  works.  They 
take  the  book  of  Creation  as  the  word  of  God,  they  refer  to  no 
other  book,  and  all  the  inferences  they  make  are  drawn  from  that 
volume. 

I  insert,  in  this  place,  the  19th  Psalm,  as  paraphrased  into  Eng- 
lish verse  by  Addison.  I  recollect  not  the  prose,  and  where  I 
write  this  I  have  not  the  opportunity  of  seeing  it. 

The  spacious  firmament  on  high, 
With  all  the  blue  ethereal  sky, 
And  spangled  heavens,  a  shining  frame 
Their  great  original  proclaim. 
The  unwearied  sun,  from  day  to  day 
Does  his  Creator's  power  display, 
And  publishes  to  every  land, 
The  work  of  an  Almighty  hand. 
Soon  as  the  evening  shades  prevail, 
The  moon  takes  up  the  wondrous  tale, 
And  nightly  to  the  list'ning  earth 
Repeats  the  story  of  her  birth  ; 
Whilst  all  the  stars  that  round  her  burn, 
And  all  the  planets,  in  their  turn, 
Confirm  the  tidings  as  they  roll, 
And  spread  the  truth  from  pole  to  pole. 
What  though  in  solemn  silence  all 
Move  round  this  dark  terrestrial  ball ; 
What  though  no  real  voice,  nor  sound, 
Amidst  their  radiant  orbs  be  found, 
In  reason's  ear  they  all  rejoice, 
And  utter  forth  a  glorious  voice, 
For  ever  singing  as  they  shine, 

THE  HAND  THAT  MADE  US  IS  DIVINE. 

What  more  does  man  want  to  know  than  that  the  hand,  or  pow- 
er, that  made  these  things  is  divinej  is  omnipotent  ?  Let  him  be- 
lieve this  with  the  force  it  is  impossible  to  repel,  if  he  permits  his 
reason  to  act,  and  his  rule  of  moral  life  will  follow  of  course. 

The  allusions  in  Job  have  all  of  them  the  same  tendency  with 
this  Psalm ;  that  of  deducing  or  proving  a  truth,  that  would  be 
otherwise  unknown,  from  truths  already  known. 

I  recollect  not  enough  of  the  passages  in  Job,  to  insert  thein 
correctly  :  but  there  is  one  occurs  to  me  that  is  applicable  to  the 
subject  I  am  speaking  upon.  "  Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out 
God  ?"  "  Canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection  ?" 

I  know  not  how  the  printers  have  pointed  this  passage,  for  I 
keep  no  Bible  ;  but  it  contains  two  distinct  questions,  that  admit 
of  distinct  answers. 


46  THE    AGE   OP   REASON. 

First — Canst  thou  by  searching  find  out  God  ?  Yes  ;  because 
in  the  first  place,  I  know  I  did  not  make  myself,  and  yet  I  have 
existence  ;  and  by  searching  into  the  nature  of  other  things,  I  find 
that  no  other  thing  could  make  itself;  and  yet  millions  of  other 
things  exist  ;  therefore  it  is,  that  I  know,  by  positive  conclusion 
resulting  from  this  search,  that  there  is  a  power  superior  to  all 
those  things,  and  that  power  is  God. 

Secondly — Canst  thou  find  out  the  Almighty  to  perfection  ?  No; 
not  only  because  the  power  and  wisdom  He  has  manifested  in  the 
structure  of  the  Creation  that  I  behold,  is  to  me  incomprehensi- 
ble, but  because  even  this  manifestation,  great  as  it  is,  is  probably 
but  a  small  display  of  that  immensity  of  power  and  wisdom,  by 
which  millions  of  other  worlds  to  me  invisible  by  their  distance, 
were  created  and  continue  to  exist. 

It  is  evident,  that  both  of  these  questions  were  put  to  the  reason 
of  the  person  to  whom  they  are  supposed  to  have  been  address- 
ed ;  and  it  is  only  by  admitting  the  first  question  to  be  answered 
affirmatively,  that  the  second  could  follow.  It  would  have  been 
unnecessary,  and  even  absurd,  to  have  put  a  second  question,  more 
difficult  than  the  first,  if  the  first  question  had  been  answered 
negatively.  The  two  questions  have  different  objects  ;  the  first 
refers  to  the  existence  of  God,  the  second  to  his  attributes  ;  rea- 
son can  discover  the  one,  but  it  falls  infinitely  short  in  discover- 
ing the  whole  of  the  other. 

I  recollect  not  a  single  passage  in  all  the  writings  ascribed  to 
the  men  called  apostles,  that  convey  any  idea  of  what  God  is. 
Those  writings  are  chiefly  controversial ;  and  the  subject  they 
dwell  upon,  that  of  a  man  dying  in  agony  on  a  cross,  is  better  suit- 
ed to  the  gloomy  genius  of  a  monk  in  a  cell,  by  whom  it  is  not 
impossible  they  were  written,  than  to  any  man  breathing  the  open 
air  of  the  Creation.  The  only  passage  that  occurs  to  me,  that  has 
any  reference  to  the  works  of  God,  by  which  only  his  power  and 
wisdom  can  be  known,  is  related  to  have  been  spoken  by  Jesus 
Christ,  as  a  remedy  against  distrustful  care.  "  Behold  the  lilies  of 
the  field,  they  toil  not,  neither  do  they  spin."  This,  however,  is 
far  inferior  to  the  allusions  in  Job,  and  in  the  19th  Psalm;  but  it  is 
similar  in  idea,  and  the  modesty  of  the  imagery  is  correspondent 
to  the  modesty  of  the  man. 

As  to  the  Christian  system  of  faith,  it  appears  to  me  as  a  species 
of  atheism — a  sort  of  religious  denial  of  God.  It  professes  to  be- 
lieve in  a  man  rather  than  in  God.  It  is  a  compound  made  up 
chiefly  of  manism  with  but  little  deism,  and  is  as  near  to  atheism 
as  twilight  is  to  darkness.  It  introduces  between  man  and  his 
Maker  an  opaque  body,  which  it  calls  a  Redeemer,  as  the  moon 
introduces  her  opaque  self  between  the  earth  and  the  sun,  and  it 
produces  by  this  means  a  religious  or  an  irreligious  eclipse  of 
light.  It  has  put  the  whole  orbit  of  reason  into  shade. 

The  effect  of  this  obscurity  has  been  that  of  turning  every  thing 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  47 

upside  down,  and  representing  it  in  reverse  ;  and  among  tn«  rev- 
olutions it  has  thus  magically  produced,  it  has  made  a  revolution 
in  Theology. 

That  which  is  now  called  natural  philosophy,  embracing  the 
whole  circle  of  science,  of  which  Astronomy  occupies  the  chief 
place,  is  the  study  of  the  works  of  God,  and  of  the  power  and 
wisdom  of  God  in  his  works,  and  is  the  true  theology. 

As  to  the  theology  that  is  now  studied  in  its  place,  it  is  the  study 
of  human  opinions  and  of  human  fancies  concerning  God.  It  is  not 
the  study  of  God  himself  in  the  works  that  he  has  made,  but  in 
the  works  or  writings  that  man  has  made  ;  and  it  is  not  among  the 
least  of  the  mischiefs  that  the  Christian  system  has  done  to  the 
world,  that  it  has  abandoned  the  original  and  beautiful  system  of 
theology,  like  a  beautiful  innocent,  to  distress  and  reproach,  to 
make  room  for  the  hag  of  superstition. 

The  book  of  Job,  and  the  19th  Psalm,  which  even  the  church 
admits  to  be  more  ancient  than  the  chronological  order  in  which 
they  stand  in  the  book  called  the  Bible,  are  theological  orations 
conformable  to  the  original  system  of  theology.  The  internal  ev- 
idence of  those  orations  proves  to  a  demonstration  that  the  study 
and  contemplation  of  the  works  of  Creation,  and  of  the  power  and 
wisdom  of  God,  revealed  and  manifested  in  those  works,  made  a 
great  part  of  the  religious  devotion  of  the  times  in  which  they  were 
written  ;  and  it  was  this  devotional  study  and  contemplation  that 
led  to  the  discovery  of  the  principles  upon  which,  what  are  now 
called  Sciences,  are  established  ;  and  it  is  to  the  discovery  of  these 
principles  that  almost  all  the  Arts  that  contribute  to  the  conveni- 
ence of  human  life,  owe  their  existence.  Every  principal  art  has 
some  science  for  its  parent,  though  the  person  who  mechanically 
performs  the  work  does  not  always,  and  but  very  seldom,  perceive 
the  connexion. 

It  is  a  fraud  of  the  Christian  system  to  call  the  sciences  human 
invention  ;  it  is  only  the  application  of  them  that  is  human.  Ev- 
ery science  has  for  its  basis  a  system  of  principles  as  fixed  and  un- 
alterable as  those  by  which  the  universe  is  regulated  and  govern- 
ed Man  cannot  make  principles  ;  he  can  only  discover  them  : 

For  example — Every  person  who  looks  at  an  Almanack  sees 
an  account  when  an  eclipse  will  take  place,  and  he  sees  also  that 
it  never  fails  to  take  place  according  to  the  account  there  given. 
This  shows  that  man  is  acquainted  with  the  laws  by  which  the 
heavenly  bodies  move.  But  it  would  be  something  worse  than  ig- 
norance, were  any  church  on  earth  to  say,  that  those  laws  are  an 
human  invention.  It  would  also  be  ignorance,or  something  worse, 
to  say  that  the  scientific  principles,  by  the  aid  of  which  man  is  en- 
abled to  calculate  and  foreknow  when  an  eclipse  will  take  place, 
are  an  human  invention.  Man  -cannot  invent  any  thing  that  is 
eternal  and  immutable  ;  and  the  scientific  principles  he  employs 
for  this  purpose  must,  and  are,  of  necessity,  as  eternal  and  immu- 


48  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

table  as  the  laws  by  which  the  heavenly  bodies  move,  or  they 
could  not  be  used  as  they  are  to  ascertain  the  time  when,  and  the 
manner  how,  an  eclipse  will  take  place. 

The  scientific  principles  that  man  employs  to  obtain  the  fore- 
knowledge of  an  eclipse,  or  of  any  thing  else,  relating  to  the  mo- 
tion of  the  heavenly  bodies,  are  contained  chiefly  in  that  part  of 
science  which  is  called  Trigonometry,  or  the  properties  of  a  tri- 
angle, which  when  applied  to  the  study  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  is 
called  Astronomy  ;  when  applied  to  direct  the  course  of  a  ship  on 
the  ocean,  it  is  called  Navigation;  when  applied  to  the  construc- 
tion of  figures  drawn  by  rule  and  compass,  it  is  called  Geometry  ; 
when  applied  to  the  construction  of  plans  of  edifices,  it  is  called 
Architecture  ;  when  applied  to  the  measurement  of  any  portion 
of  the  surface  of  the  earth,  it  is  called  Land-surveying.  In  fine, 
it  is  the  soul  of  science  ;  it  is  an  eternal  truth  ;  it  contains  the 
mathematical  demonstration  of  which  man  speaks,  and  the  extent 
of  its  uses  is  unknown. 

It  may  be  said,  that  man  can  make  or  draw  a  triangle,  and 
therefore  a  triangle  is  an  human  invention. 

But  the  triangle,  when  drawn,  is  no  other  than  the  image  of  the 
principle  ;  it  is  a  delineation  to  the  eye,  and  from  thence  to  the 
mind,  of  a  principle  that  would  otherwise  be  imperceptible.  The 
triangle  does  not  make  the  principle,  any  more  than  a  candle  tak- 
en into  a  room  that  was  dark,  makes  the  chairs  and  tables  that 
before  were  invisible.  All  the  properties  of  the  triangle  exist  in- 
dependently of  the  figure,  and  existed  before  any  triangle  was 
drawn  or  thought  of  by  man.  Man  had  no  more  to  do  in  the 
formation  of  those  properties  or  principles,  than  he  had  to  do  in 
making  the  laws  by  which  the  heavenly  bodies  move  ;  and  there- 
fore the  one  must  have  the  same  divine  origin  as  the  other. 

In  the  same  manner  as  it  may  be  said,  that  man  can  make  a  tri- 
angle, so  also  may  it  be  said,  he  can  make  the  mechanical  instru- 
ment called  a  lever  ;  but  the  principle,  by  which  the  lever  acts,  is 
a  thing  distinct  from  the  instrument,  and  would  exist  if  the  instru- 
ment did  not  :  it  attaches  itself  to  the  instrument  after  it  is  made  ; 
the  instrument,  therefore,  can  act  no  otherwise  than  it  does  act ; 
neither  can  all  the  efforts  of  human  invention  make  it  act  other- 
wise— That  which,  in  all  such  cases,  man  calls  the  effect,  is  no 
other  than  the  principle  itself  rendered  perceptible  to  the  senses. 

Since  then  man  cannot  make  principles,  from  whence  did  he 
gain  a  knowledge  of  them,  so  as  to  be  able  to  apply  them,  not  only 
to  things  on  earth,  but  to  ascertain  the  motion  of  bodies  so  im- 
mensely distant  from  him  as  all  the  heavenly  bodies  are  ?  From 
whence,  I  ask,  could  he  gain  that  knowledge,  but  from  the  study 
of  the  true  theology  ? 

It  is  the  structure  of  the  universe  that  has  taught  this  knowledge 
to  man.  That  structure  is  an  ever-existing  exhibition  of  every 
principle  upon  which  every  part  of  mathematical  science  is  foun- 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  49 

ded.  The  offspring  of  this  science  is  mechanics  ;  for  mechanics 
is  no  other  than  the  principles  of  science  applied  practically. 
The  man  who  proportions  the  several  parts  of  a  mill,  uses  the  same 
scientific  principles,  as  if  he  had  the  power  of  constructing  an 
universe  ;  but  as  he  cannot  give  to  matter  that  invisible  agency, 
by  which  all  the  component  parts  of  the  immense  machine  of  the 
universe  have  influence  upon  each  other  and  act  in  motional  unison 
together,  without  any  apparent  contact,  and  to  which  man  has 
given  the  name  of  attraction,  gravitation,  and  repulsion,  he  sup- 
plies the  place  of  that  agency  by  the  humble  imitation  of  teeth  arid 
cogs.  All  the  parts  of  man's  microcosm  must  visibly  touch  ;  but 
could  he  gain  a  knowledge  of  that  agency,  so  as  to  be  able  to  ap- 
ply it  in  practice,  we  might  then  say,  that  another  canonical  book 
of  the  word  of  God  had  been  discovered. 

If  man  could  alter  the  properties  of  the  lever,  so  also  could  ho 
alter  the  properties  of  the  triangle  ;  for  a  lever  (taking  that  sort 
of  lever  which  is  called  a  steel-yard,  for  the  sake  of  explanation) 
forms,  when  in  motion,  a  triangle.  The  line  it  descends  from,  (ono 
point  of  that  line  being  in  the  fulcrum)  the  line  it  descends  to,  an^ 
the  cord  of  the  arc,  which  the  end  of  the  lever  describes  in  the 
air,  are  the  three  sides  of  a  triangle.  The  other  arm  of  the  lever 
describes  also  a  triangle  ;  and  the  corresponding  sides  of  those 
two  triangles,  calculated  scientifically,  or  measured  geometrical- 
ly ;  and  also  the  sines,  tangents,  and  secants  generated  from  the 
angles,  and  geometrically  measured,  have  the  same  proportions  to 
each  other,  as  the  different  weights  have  that  will  balance  each 
other  on  the  lever,  leaving  the  weight  of  the  lever  out  of  the  case. 

It  may  also  be  said,  that  man  can  make  a  wheel  and  axis  ;  that 
he  can  put  wheels  of  different  magnitudes  together,  and  produce 
a  mill.  Still  the  case  comes  back  to  the  same  point,  which  is,  that 
he  did  not  make  the  principle  that  gives  the  wheels  those  powers. 
That  principle  is  as  unalterable  as  in  the  former  cases,  or  rather  it 
is  the  same  principle  under  a  different  appearance  to  the  eye. 

The  power  that  two  wheels,  of  different  magnitudes,  have  up- 
on each  other,  is  in  the  same  proportion  as  if  the  semi-diameter  of 
the  two  wheels  were  joined  together  and  made  in  that  kind  of 
lever  I  have  described,  suspended  at  the  part  where  the  serni-di- 
ameters  join ;  for  the  two  wheels,  scientifically  considered,  are 
no  other  than  the  two  circles  generated  by  the  motion  of  the  com- 
pound lever. 

It  is  from  the  study  of  the  true  theology  that  all  our  knowledge 
of  science  is  derived,  and  it  is  from  that  knowledge  that  all  ihe 
arts  have  cn^inated. 

The  Almighty  lecturer,  by  displaying  the  principles  of  science 
in  the  structure  of  the  universe,  has  invited  man  to  study  and  to 
imitation.  It  is  as  if  he  had  said  to  the  inhabitants  of  this  globe, 
that  we  call  ours,  "  I  have  made  an  earth  for  man  to  dwell  upon, 
"  and  I  have  rendered  the  starry  heavens  visible,  to  teach  him 
5 


50  THE    AGE    OF   REASON. 

"  science  and  the  arts.     He  can  now  provide  for  his  own  comfort, 

"  AND  LEARN  FROM  MY  MUNIFICENCE  TO  ALL,  TO  BE  KIND  TO  EACH 
«  OTHER." 

Of  what  use  is  it,  unless  it  be  to  teach  man  something,  that  his 
eye  is  endowed  with  the  power  of  beholding,  to  an  incomprehen- 
sible distance,  an  immensity  of  worlds  revolving  in  the  ocean  of 
space  ?  Or  of  what  use  is  it  that  this  immensity  of  worlds  is  vis- 
ible to  man  ?  What  has  man  to  do  with  the  Pleiades,  with  Orion, 
with  Sirius,  with  the  star  he  calls  the  north  star,  with  the  moving 
orbs  he  has  narn,ed  Saturn,  Jupiter,  Mars,  Yenus,  and  Mercury, 
if  no  uses  are  to  follow  from  their  being  visible  ?  A  less  power  of 
vision  would  have  been  sufficient  for  man,  if  the  immensity  he 
now  possesses  were  given  only  to  waste  itself,  as  it  were,  on  an 
immense  desert  of  space  glittering  with  shows. 

It  is  only  by  contemplating  what  he  calls  the  starry  heavens,  as 
the  book  and  school  of  science,  that  he  discovers  any  use  in  their 
being  visible  to  him,  or  any  advantage  resulting  from  his  immen- 
sity of  vision.  But  when  he  contemplates  the  subject  in  this 
light,  he  sees  an  additional  motive  for  saying,  that  nothing  was 
made  in  vain ;  for  in  vain  would  be  this  power  of  vision  if  it  taught 
man  nothing. 

As  the  Christian  system  of  faith  has  made  a  revolution  in  the- 
ology, so  also  has  it  made  a  revolution  in  the  state  of  learning. 
That  which  is  now  called  learning  was  not  learning  originally. 
Learning  does  not  consist,  as  the  schools  now  make  it  consist,  in 
the  knowledge  of  languages,  but  in  the  knowledge  of  things  to 
which  language  gives  names. 

The  Greeks  were  a  learned  people,  but  learning  with  them  did 
not  consist  in  speaking  Greek,  any  more  than  in  a  Roman's  speak- 
ing Latin,  or  a  Frenchman's  speaking  French,  or  an  Englishman's 
speaking  English.  From  what  we  know  of  the  Greeks,  it  does 
not  appear  that  they  knew  or  studied  any  language  but  their  own, 
and  this  was  one  cause  of  their  becoming  so  learned  ;  it  afford- 
ed them  more  time  to  apply  themselves  to  better  studies.  The 
schools  of  the  Greeks  were  schools  of  science  and  philosophy, 
and  not  of  languages  ;  and  it  is  in  the  knowledge  of  the  things 
that  science  and  philosophy  teach,  that  learning  consists. 

Almost  all  the  scientific  learning  that  now  exists,  came  to  us 
from  the  Greeks,  or  the  people  who  spoke  the  Greek  language. — 
It,  therefore,  became  necessary  for  the  people  of  other  nations, 
who  spoke  a  different  language,  that  some  among  them  should 
learn  the  Greek  language,  in  order  that  the  learning  the  Greeks 
had,  might  be  made  known  in  those  nations,  by  translating  the 
Greek  books  of  science  and  philosophy  into  the  mother  tongue  of 
each  nation. 

The  study  therefore  of  the  Greek  language  (and  in  the  same 
manner  for  the  Latin)  was  no  other  than  the  drudgery  business 
of  a  linguist ;  and  the  language  thus  obtained,  was  no  other  than 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  51 

the  means,  as  it  were  the  tools,  employed  to  obtain  the  learning 
the  Greeks  had.  It  made  no  part  of  the  learning  itself ;  and 
was  so  distinct  from  it,  as  to  make  it  exceedingly  probable  that 
the  persons  who  had  studied  Greek  sufficiently  to  translate  those 
works,  such,  for  instance,  as  Euclid's  Elements,  did  not  under- 
stand any  of  the  learning  the  works  contained. 

As  there  is  now  nothing  new  to  be  learned  from  the  dead  lan- 
guages, all  the  useful  books  being  already  translated,  the  lan- 
guages are  become  useless,  and  the  time  expended  in  teaching 
and  learning  them  is  wasted.  So  far  as  the  study  of  languages 
may  contribute  to  the  progress  and  communication  of  knowledge, 
(for  it  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  creation  of  knowledge,)  it  is 
only  in  the  living  languages  that  new  knowledge  is  to  be  found  ; 
and  certain  it  is,  that,  in  general,  a  youth  will  learn  more  of  a 
living  language  in  one  year,  than  of  a  dead  language  in  seven  ; 
and  it  is  but  seldom  that  the  teacher  knows  much  of  it  himself. 
The  difficulty  of  learning  the  dead  languages  does  not  arise  from 
any  superior  abstruseness  in  the  languages  themselves,  but  in 
their  being  dead,  and  the  pronunciation  entirely  lost.  It  would 
be  the  same  thing  with  any  other  language  when  it  becomes 
dead.  The  best  Greek  linguist  that  now  exists,  does  not  under- 
stand Greek  so  well  as  a  Grecian  ploughman  did,  or  a  Grecian 
milkmaid  ;  and  the  same  for  the  Latin,  compared  with  a  plough- 
man or  milkmaid  of  the  Romans  :  It  would  therefore  be  advan- 
tageous to  the  state  of  learning  to  abolish  the  study  of  the  dead 
languages,  and  to  make  learning  consist,  as  it  originally  did,  in 
scientific  knowledge. 

The  apology  that  is  sometimes  made  for  continuing  to  teach  the 
dead  languages  is,  that  they  are  taught  at  a  time,  when  a  child  is 
not  capable  of  exerting  any  other  mental  faculty  than  that  of 
memory  ;  but  that  is  altogether  erroneous.  The  human  mind 
has  a  natural  disposition  to  scientific  knowledge,  and  to  the  things 
connected  with  it.  The  first  and  favorite  amusement  of  a  child, 
even  before  it  begins  to  play,  is  that  of  imitating  the  works  of 
man.  It  builds  houses  with  cards  or  sticks  ;  it  navigates  the 
little  ocean  of  a  bowl  of  water  with  a  paper  boat,  or  dams  the 
stream  of  a  gutter,  and  contrives  something  which  it  calls  a  mill  j 
and  it  interests  itself  in  the  fate  of  its  works  with  a  care  that  re- 
sembles affection.  It  afterwards  goes  to  school,  where  its  genius 
is  killed  by  the  barren  study  of  a  dead  language,  and  the  philoso- 
pher is  lost  in  the  linguist. 

But  the  apology  that  is  now  made  for  continuing  to  teach  the 
dead  languages,  could  not  be  the  cause,  at  first,  of  cutting  down 
learning  to  the  narrow  and  humble  sphere  of  linguistry  ;  the 
cause,  therefore,  must  be  sought  for  elsewhere.  In  all  research- 
es of  this  kind,  the  best  evidence  that  can  be  produced,  is  the  in- 
ternal evidence  the  thing  carries  with  itself,  and  the  evidence  of 


52  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

circumstances  that  unites  with  it  ;  both  of  which,  in  this  case, 
are  not  difficult  to  be  discovered. 

Putting  then  aside,  as  a  matter  of  distinct  consideration,  the 
outrage  offered  to  the  moral  justice  of  God,  by  supposing  him  to 
make  the  innocent  suffer  for  the  guilty,  and  also  the  loose  moral- 
ity and  low  contrivance  of  supposing  him  to  change  himself  into 
the  shape  of  a  man,  in  order  to  make  an  excuse  to  himself  for  not 
executing  his  supposed  sentence  upon  Adam  ;  putting,  I  say, 
those  things  aside,  as  matter  of  distinct  consideration,  it  is  cer- 
tain that  what  is  called  the  Christian  system  of  faith,  including 
in  it  the  whimsical  account  of  the  creation — the  strange  story  of 
Eve — the  snake  and  the  Apple — the  ambiguous  idea  of  a  man- 
god — the  corporeal  idea  of  the  death  of  a  god — the  mythologi- 
cal idea  of  a  family  of  gods,  and  the  Christian  system  of  arithme- 
tic, that  three  are  one,  and  one  is  three,  are  all  irreconcilable,  not 
only  to  the  divine  gift  of  reason,  that  God  hath  given  to  Man, 
but  to  the  knowledge  that  man  gains  of  the  power  and  wisdom  of 
God,  by  the  aid  of  the  sciences,  and  by  studying  the  structure  of 
the  universe  that  God  has  made. 

The  setters-up,  therefore,  and  the  advocates  of  the  Christian 
system  of  faith,  could  not  but  foresee  that  the  continually  progres- 
sive knowledge  that  man  would  gain,  by  the  aid  of  science,  of 
the  power  and  wisdom  of  God,  manifested  in  the  structure  of  the 
universe,  and  in  all  the  works  of  Creation,  would  militate  against, 
and  call  into  question,  the  truth  of  their  system  of  faith  ;  and 
therefore  it  became  necessary  to  their  purpose  to  cut  learning 
down  to  a  size  less  dangerous  to  their  project,  and  this  they  ef- 
fected by  restricting  the  idea  of  learning  to  the  dead  study  of 
dead  languages. 

They  not  only  rejected  the  study  of  science  out  of  the  Chris- 
tian schools,  but  they  persecuted  it  ;  and  it  is  only  within  about 
the  last  two  centuries  that  the  study  has  been  revived.  So  late 
as  1610,  Galileo,  a  Florentine,  discovered  and  introduced  the 
use  of  telescopes,  and  by  applying  them  to  observe  the  motions 
and  appearance  of  the  heavenly  bodies,  afforded  additional  means 
for  ascertaining  the  true  structure  of  the  universe.  Instead  of 
being  esteemed  for  those  discoveries,  he  was  sentenced  to  re- 
nounce them,  or  the  opinions  resulting  from  them,  as  a  damnable 
heresy.  And  prior  to  that  time  Vigilius  was  condemned  to  be 
burned  for  asserting  the  antipodes,  or  in  other  words,  that  the 
earth  was  a  globe,  and  habitable  in  every  part  where  there  was 
land  ;  yet  the  truth  of  this  is  now  too  well  known  even  to  be 
told. 

If  the  belief  of  errors  not  morally  bad  did  no  mischief,  it  would 
make  no  part  of  the  moral  duty  of  man  to  oppose  and  remove 
them.  There  was  no  moral  ill  in  believing  the  earth  was  flat  like 
a  trencher,  any  more  than  there  was  moral  virtue  in  believing  it 
was  round  like  a  globe  ;  neither  was  there  any  moral  ill  in  be- 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  53 

lieving'that  the  Creator  made  no  other  world  than  this,  any  more 
than  there  was  moral  virtue  in  believing  that  he  made  millions, 
and  that  the  infinity  of  space  is  filled  with  worlds.  But  when  a 
system  of  religion  is  made  to  grow  out  of  a  supposed  system  of 
creation  that  is  not  true,  and  to  unite  itself  therewith  in  a  manner 
almost  inseparable  therefrom,  the  case  assumes  an  entirely  differ- 
ent ground.  It  is  then  that  errors,  not  morally  bad,  become 
fraught  with  the  same  mischiefs  as  if  they  were.  It  is  then  that 
the  truth,  though  otherwise  indifferent  itself,  becomes  an  essen- 
tial, by  becoming  the  criterion,  that  either  confirms  by  corres- 
ponding evidence,  or  denies  by  contradictory  evidence,  the  real- 
ity of  the  religion  itself.  In  this  view  of  the  case,  it  is  the  moral 
duty  of  man  to  obtain  every  possible  evidence  that  the  structure 
of  the  heavens,  or  any  other  part  of  creation  affords,  with  respect 
to  systems  of  religion.  But  this,  the  supporters  or  partizans  of 
the  Christian  system,  as  if  dreading  the  result,  incessantly  oppo- 
sed, and  not  only  rejected  the  sciences,  but  persecuted  the  pro- 
fessors. Had  Newton  or  Descartes  lived  three  or  four  hundred 
years  ago,  and  pursued  their  studies  as  they  did,  it  is  most  proba- 
ble they  would  not  have  lived  to  finish  them  ;  and  had  Franklin 
drawn  lightning  from  the  clouds  at  the  same  time,  it  would  have 
been  at  tL"?  hazard  of  expiring  for  it  in  flames. 

Latter  times  have  laid  all  the  blame  upon  the  Goths  and  Van- 
dals ;  but,  however  unwilling  the  partizans  of  the  Christian  sys- 
tem may  be  to  believe  or  to  acknowledge  it,  it  is  nevertheless  true, 
that  the  age  of  ignorance  commenced  with  the  Christian  system. 
There  was  more  knowledge  in  the  world  before  that  period,  than 
for  many  centuries  afterwards  ;  and  as  to  religious  knowledge,  the 
Christian  system,  as  already  said,  was  only  another  species  of  my- 
thology ;  and  the  mythology  to  which  it  succeeded,  was  a  corrup- 
tion of  an  ancient  system  of  theism.* 

*  It  is  impossible  for  us  now  to  know  at  what  time  the  heathen  mythology  began  ; 
but  it  is  certain,  from  the  internal  evidence  that  it  carries,  that  it  did  not  begin  in 
the  same  state  or  condition  in  which  it  ended.  AH  the  gods  of  that  mythology, 
except  Saturn,  were  of  modern  invention.  The  supposed  reign  of  Saturn  was  prior 
to  that  which  is  called  the  heathen  mythology,  and  was  so  far  a  species  of  theism, 
that  it  admitted  the  belief  of  only  one  God.  Saturn  is  supposed  to  have  abdicated 
the  government  in  favour  of  his  three  sons  antl  one  daughter,  Jupiter,  Pluto,  Neptune, 
and  Juno  ;  after  this,  thousands  of  other  gods  and  demi-gods  were  imaginarily  created, 
and  the  calendar  of  gods  increased  as  fast  as  the  calendar  of  saints,  and  the  calendars 
of  courts  have  increased  since. 

All  the  corruptions  that  have  taken  place,  in  theology  and  in  religion,  have  been 
produced  by  admitting  of  what  man  calls  revealed  religion.  The  Mythologists  pre- 
tended to  more  revealed  religion  than  the  Christians  do.  They  had  their  oracles  and 
their  priests,  who  were  supposed  to  receive  and  deliver  the  word  of  God  verbally,  on 
almost  all  occasion?. 

Since  then  all  corruptions  drawn  from  Molock  to  modern  predcstinarianism,  and 
the  human  sacrifices  of  the  heathens  to  the  Christian  sacrifice  of  tl>e  Creator,  have 
been  produced  by  admitting  of  what  is  culled  revealed  religion,  the  most  effectual 
means  to  prevent  all  sudi  evil?  and  impositions  is,  not  to  admit  of  any  other  revelation 
than  that  which  i.->  manifested  in  the  book  of  creation,  and  to  contemplate  the  creation 
as  the  only  true  and  real  work  of  God  that  ever  did,  or  ever  will  exist  j  and  that  every 
thing  else,  called  the  word  of  God,  is  fable  and  imposition. 
5* 


54  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

It  is  owing  to  this  long  interregnum  of  science,  and  to  no  other 
cause,  that  we  have  now  to  look  through  a  vast  chasm  of  many 
hundred  years  to  the  respectable  characters  we  call  the  ancients. 
Had  the  progression  of  knowledge  gone  on  proportionably  with 
the  stock  that  before  existed,  that  chasm  would  have  been  filled 
up  with  characters  rising  superior  in  knowledge  to  each  other  ; 
and  those  ancients  we  now  so  much  admire,  would  have  appeared 
respectably  in  the  back  ground  of  the  scene.  But  the  Christian 
system  laid  all  waste  ;  and  if  we  take  our  stand  about  the  begin- 
ning of  the  sixteenth  century,  we  look  back  through  that  long 
chasm,  to  the  times  of  the  ancients,  as  over  a  vast  sandy  desart, 
in  which  not  a  shrub  appears  to  intercept  the  vision  to  the  fertile 
hills  beyond. 

It  is  an  inconsistency  scarcely  possible  to  be  credited,  that  any 
thin^  should  exist,  under  the  name  of  a  religion,  that  held  it  to  be 
irreligious  to  study  and  contemplale  the  structure  of  the  universe 
that  God  had  made.  But  the  fact  is  too  well  established  to  be 
denied.  The  event  that  served  more  than  any  other  to  break  the 
first  link  in  this  long  chain  of  despotic  ignorance,  is  that  known 
by  the  name  of  the  Reformation  by  Luther.  From  that  time, 
though  it  does  not  appear  to  have  made  any  part  of  the  intention 
of  Luther,  or  of  those  who  are  called  reformers,  the  sciences  be- 
gan to  revive,  and  liberality,  their  natural  associate,  began  to 
appear.  This  was  the  only  public  good  the  reformation  did  * 
for,  with  respect  to  religious  good,  it  might  as  well  not  have  taken 
place.  The  mythology  still  continued  the  same  ;  and  a  multipli- 
city of  National  Popes  grew  out  of  the  downfal  of  the  Pope  of 
Christen  dom. 

Having  thus  shown  from  the  internal  evidence  of  things,  the 
cause  that  produced  a  change  in  the  state  of  learning,  and  the 
motive  for  substituting  the  study  of  the  dead  languages  in  the 
place  of  the  sciences,  I  proceed,  in  addition  to  the  several  obser- 
vations already  made  in  the  former  part  of  this  work,  to  compare 
or  rather  to  confront  the  evidence  that  the  structure  of  the  uni- 
verse affords,  with  the  Christian  system  of  religion ;  but,  as  I 
cannot  begin  this  part  better  than  by  referring  to  the  ideas  that  oc- 
curred to  rne  at  an  early  part  of  life,  and  which  I  doubt  not  have 
occurred  in  some  degree  to  almost  every  other  person  at  one 
time  or  other,  I  shall  state  what  those  idea**  were,  and  add  thereto 
such  other  matter  as  shall  arise  out  of  the  subject,  giving  to  the 
whole,  by  way  of  preface,  a  short  introduction. 

My  father  being  of  the  Quaker  profession,  it  was  my  good  for- 
tune to  have  an  exceeding  good  moral  education,  and  a  tolerable 
stock  of  useful  learning.  Though  I  went  to  the  grammar  school,* 
I  did  not  learn  Latin,  not  only  because  I  had  no  inclination  to 
learn  languages,  but  because  of  the  objection  the  Quakers  have 

*  The  same  school,  Thetford  in  Norfolk,  that  the  present  Counsellor  Mingay 
to,  and  under  the  same  master. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  55 

against  the  books  in  which  the  language  is  taught.  But  this  did 
not  prevent  me  from  being  acquainted  with  the  subjects  of  all  the 
Latin  books  used  in  the  school. 

The  natural  bent  of  my  mind  was  to  science.  I  had  some  turn, 
and  I  believe  some  talent  for  poetry  ;  but  this  I  rather  repressed 
than  encouraged,  as  leading  too  much  into  the  field  of  imagination. 
As  soon  as  I  was  able,  I  purchased  a  pair  of  globes,  and  attend- 
ed the  philosophical  lectures  of  Martin  and  Ferguson,  and  be- 
came afterwards  acquainted  with  Dr.  Bevis,  of  the  society, 'called 
the  Royal  Society,  then  living  in  the  Temple,  and  an  excellent 
astronomer. 

I  had  no  disposition  for  what  is  called  politics.  It  presented  to 
my  mind  no  other  idea  than  is  contained  in  the  word  Jockeyship. 
When,  therefore,  I  turned  my  thoughts  towards  matters  of  gov- 
ernment, I  had  to  form  a  system  for  myself,  that  accorded  with  the 
moral  and  philosophic  principles  in  which  I  had  been  educated. 
I  saw,  or  at  least  I  thought  I  saw,  a  vast  scene  opening  itself  to 
the  world  in  the  affairs  of  America  ;  and  it  appeared  to  me,  that 
Unless  the  Americans  changed  the  }>lan  they  were  then  pursuing, 
with  respect  to  the  government  of  England,  and  declare  themselves 
independent,  they  would  not  only  involve  themselves  hi  a  multi- 
plicity of  new  difficulties,  but  shut  out  the  prospect  that  was  then 
offering  itself  to  mankind  tl  rough  their  means.  It  was  from  these 
motives  that  I  published  the  work  known  by  the  name  of  "  Com- 
mon Sense,"  which  is  the  first  work  I  ever  did  publish  ;  and  so  far 
as  I  can  judge  of  myself,  I  believe  I  should  never  have  been 
known  in  the  world  as  an  author,  on  any  subject  whatever,  had  it 
not  been  for  the  affairs  of  America.  I  wrote  "  Common  Sense" 
the  latter  end  of  the  year  1775,  and  published  it  the  first  of  January, 
1776.  Independence  was  declared  the  fourth  of  July  following. 

Any  person,  who  has  made  observations  on  the  state  and  pro- 
gress of  the  human  mind,  by  observing  his  own,  cannot  but  have 
observed,  that  there  are  two  distinct  classes  of  what  are  called 
Thoughts  ;  those  that  we  produce  in  ourselves  by  reflection  and 
the  act  of  thinking,  and  those  that  bolt  into  the  mind  of  their  own 
accord.  I  have  always  made  it  a  rule  to  treat  those  voluntary 
visitors  with  civility,  taking  care  to  examine,  as  well  as  I  was  able, 
if  they  were  worth  entertaining  ;  and  it  is  from  them  I  have  ac- 
quired almost  all  the  knowledge  that  I  have.  As  to  the  learning 
that  any  person  gains  from  school  education,  it  serves  only,  like 
a  small  capital,  to  put  him  in  the  way  of  beginning  learning  for 
himself  afterwards.  Every  person  of  learning  is  finally  his  own 
teacher,  the  reason  of  which  is,  that  principles,  being  of  a  distinct 
quality  to  circumstances,  cannot  be  impressed  upon  the  memory  ; 
their  place  of  mental  residence  is  the  understanding,  and  they 
are  never  so  lasting  as  when  they  begin  by  conception.  Thus 
much  for  the  introductory  part. 

From  the  time  I  was  capable  of  conceiving  an  idea,  and  acting 


56  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

upon  it  by  reflection,  I  either  doubted  the  truth  of  the  Christian 
system,  or  thought  it  to  be  a  strange  affair  ;  I  scarcely  knew  which 
it  was  :  but  I  well  remember,  when  about  seven  or  eight  years  of 
age,  hearing  a  sermon  read  by  a  relation  of  mine,  who  was  a 
great  devotee  of  the  church,  upon  the  subject  of  what  is  called 
redemption  by  the  death  of  the  Son  of  God.  After  the  sermon  was 
ended,  I  went  into  the  garden,  and  as  I  was  going  down  the  gar- 
den steps  (for  I  perfectly  recollect  the  spot)  I  revolted  at  the  re- 
collection of  what  I  had  heard,  and  thought  to  myself  that  it  was 
making  God  Almighty  act  like  a  passionate  man  that  killed  his, 
son,  when  he  could  not  revenge  himself  any  other  way  ;  and  as 
I  was  sure  a  man  would  be  hanged  that  did  such  a  thing,  I  could 
not  see  for  what  purpose  they  preached  such  sermons.  This  was 
not  one  of  those  kind  of  thoughts  that  had  any  thing  in  it  of 
childish  levity  ;  it  was  to  me  a  serious  reflection,  arising  from  the 
idea  I  had,  that  God  was  too  good  to  do  such  an  action,  and  also 
too  almighty  to  be  under  any  necessity  of  doing  it.  I  believe  in 
the  same  manner  at  this  moment ;  and  I  moreover  believe,  that 
any  system  of  religion,  that  has  any  thing  in  it  that  shocks  the 
mind  of  a  child,  cannot  be  a  true  system. 

It  seems  as  if  parents  of  the  Christian  profession  were  asham- 
ed to  tell  their  children  any  thing  about  the  principles  of  their  re- 
ligion. They  sometimes  instruct  them  in  morals,  and  talk  to  them 
of  the  goodness  of  what  they  call  Providence  ;  for  the  Christian 
mythology  has  five  deities — there  is  God  the  Father,  God  the 
Son,  God  the  Holy  Ghost,  the  God  Providence,  and  the  Goddess 
Nature.  But  the  Christian  story  of  God  the  Father  putting  his 
son  to  death,  or  employing  people  to  do  it  (for  that  is  the  plain 
language  of  the  story)  cannot  be  told  by  a  parent  to  a  child  ;  and 
to  tell  him  that  it  was  done  to  make  mankind  happier  and  better, 
is  making  the  story  still  worse,  as  if  mankind  could  be  improved 
by  the  example  of  murder  ;  and  to  tell  him  that  all  this  is  a  mys- 
tery, is  only  making  an  excuse  for  the  incredibility  of  it. 

How  different  is  this  to  the  pure  and  simple  profession  of  De- 
ism !  The  true  Deist  has  but  one  Deity  ;  and  his  religion  con- 
sists in  contemplating  the  power,  wisdom,  and  benignity  of  the 
Deity  in  his  works,  and  in  endeavoring  to  imitate  him  in  every 
thing  moral,  scientifical,  and  mechanical. 

The  religion  that  approaches  the  nearest  of  all  others  to  true 
Deism  in  the  moral  and  benign  part  thereof,  is  that  professed  by 
the  Quakers  ;  but  they  have  contracted  themselves  too  much,  by 
leaving  the  works  of  God  out  of  their  system.  Though  I  rever- 
ence their  philanthropy,  I  cannot  help  smiling  at  the  conceit,  that 
if  the  taste  of  a  Quaker  could  have  been  consulted  at  the  crea- 
tion, what  a  silent  and  drab-coloured  creation  it  would  have  been  ! 
Not  a  flower  would  have  blossomed  its  gaities,  nor  a  bird  been 
permitted  to  sing. 

Quitting  these  reflections,  I  proceed  to  other  matters.     After  I 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  57 

had  made  myself  master  of  the  use  of  the  globes,  and  of  the  or- 
rery,* and  conceived  an  idea  of  the  infinity  of  space,  and  the 
eternal  divisibility  of  matter,  and  obtained,  at  least,  a  general 
knowledge  of  what  is  called  natural  philosophy,  I  began  to  com- 
pare, or,  as  I  have  before  said,  to  confront  the  eternal  evidence 
those  things  afford  with  the  Christian  system  of  faith. 

Though  it  is  not  a  direct  article  of  the  Christian  system,  that 
this  world  that  we  inhabit,  is  the  whole  of  the  habitable  creation, 
yet  it  is  so  worked  up  therewith,  from  what  is  called  the  Mosaic 
account  of  the  Creation,  the  story  of  Eve  and  the  apple,  and  the 
counterpart  of  that  story,  the  death  of  the  son  of  God,  that  to 
believe  otherwise,  that  is,  to  believe  that  God  created  a  plurality 
of  worlds,  at  least  as  numerous  as  what  we  call  stars,  renders 
the  Christian  system  of  faith  at  once  little  and  ridiculous,  and 
scatters  it  in  the  mind  like  feathers  in  the  air.  The  two  beliefs 
cannot  be  held  together  in  the  same  mind ;  and  he  who  thinks 
that  he  believes  both,  has  thought  but  little  of  either. 

Though  the  belief  of  a  plurality  of  worlds  was  familiar  to  the 
ancients,  it  is  only  within  the  last  three  centuries  that  the  extent 
and  dimensions  of  this  globe  that  we  inhabit  have  been  ascer- 
tained. Several  vessels  following  the  tract  of  the  ocean,  have 
sailed  entirely  round  the  world,  as  a  man  may  march  in  a  circle, 
and  come  round  by  the  contrary  side  of  the  circle  to  the  spot  he 
set  out  from.  The  circular  dimensions  of  our  world,  in  the  wid- 
est part,  as  a  man  would  measure  the  widest  round  of  an  apple 
or  a  ball,  is  only  twenty-five  thousand  and  twenty  English  miles, 
reckoning  sixty-nine  miles  and  an  half  to  an  equatorial  degree, 
and  may  be  sailed  round  in  the  space  of  about  three  years.j 

A  world  of  this  extent  may,  at  first  thought,  appear  to  us  to  be 
great ;  but  if  we  compare  it  with  the. immensity  of  space  in  which 
it  is  suspended,  like  a  bubble  or  balloon  in  the  air,  it  is  infinitely 
less,  in  proportion,  than  the  smallest  grain  of  sand  is  to  the  size 
of  the  world,  or  the  finest  particle  of  dew  to  the  whole  ocean, 
and  is  therefore  but  small ;  and  as  will  be  hereafter  shown,  is  on- 
ly one  of  a  system  of  worlds,  of  which  the  universal  creation  is  • 
composed. 

It  is  not  difficult  to  gain  some  faint  idea  of  the  immensity  of 

*  As  this  book  may  fall  into  the  hands  of  persons  who  do  not  know  what  an  orrery 
is,  it  is  for  their  information  I  add  this  note,  as  the  name  gives  no  idea  of  the  uses  of 
the  thing.  The  orrery  has  its  name  from  the  person  who  invented  it.  It  is  a  ma- 
chinery of  clock-work,  representing  the  universe  in  miniature,  and  hi  which  the  revo- 
lution of  the  earth  round  .itself  ami  round  the  sun,  the  revolution  of  the  moon  round 
the  earth,  the  revolution  of  the  planets  round  the  sun,  their  relative  distances  from  the 
sun,  as  the  centre  of  the  whole  system,  their  relative  distances  from  each  other,  and 
their  different  magnitudes,  are  represented  as  they  really  exist  in  what  we  call  the 
hea7ens. 

f  Allowing  a  ship  to  sail,  on  an  average,  three  miles  in  an  hour,  she  would  sail  en- 
tirely round  the  world  in  less  than  one  year,  if  she  could  sail  in  a  direct  circle ;  but 
she  is  obliged  to  follow  the  course  of  the  ocean. 


58  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

space  in  which  this  and  all  the  other  worlds  are  suspended,  if  we 
follow  a  progression  of  ideas.  When  we  think  of  the  size  or  di- 
mensions of  a  room,  our  ideas  limit  themselves  to  the  walls,  and 
there  they  stop  ;  but  when  our  eye,  or  our  imagination  darts  into 
space,  that  is,  when  it  looks  upward  into  what  we  call  the  open 
air,  we  cannot  conceive  any  walls  or  boundaries  it  can  have  ;  and, 
if  for  the  sake  of  resting  our  ideas,  we  suppose  a  boundary, 'the 
question  immediately  renews  itself,  and  asks,  what  is  beyond  that 
boundary  ?  and,  in  the  same  manner,  what  is  beyond  the  next 
boundary  ?  and  so  on,  till  the  fatigued  imagination  returns  and 
says,  there  is  no  end.  Certainly,  then,  the  Creator  was  not  pent 
for  room,  when  he  made  this  world  no  larger  than  it  is  ;  and  we 
have  to  seek  the  reason  in  something  else. 

If  we  take  a  survey  (four  own  world,  or  rather  of  this,  of  which 
the  Creator  has  given  us  the  use,  as  our  portion  in  the  immense 
system  of  Creation,  we  find  every  part  of  it,  the  earth,  the  waters, 
and  the  air  that  surrounds  it,  filled,  and  as  it  were,  crowded  with 
life,  down  from  the  largest  animals  that  we  know  of  to  the  smallest 
insects  the  naked  eye  can  behold,  and  from  thence  to  others  still 
smaller,  and  totally  invisible  without  the  assistance  of  the  micro- 
scope. Every  tree,  every  plant,  every  leaf,  serves  not  only  as  an 
habitation,  but  as  a  world  to  some  numerous  race,  till  animal  ex- 
istence becomes  so  exceedingly  refined,  that  the  effluvia  of  a  blade 
of  grass  would  be  food  for  thousands. 

Since  then  no  part  of  our  earth  is  left  unoccupied,  why  is  it  to 
be  supposed  that  the  immensity  of  space  is  a  naked  void,  lying  in 
eternal  waste  ?  There  is  room  for  millions  of  worlds  as  large  or 
larger  than  ours,  and  each  of  them  millions  of  miles  apart  from 
each  other. 

Having  now  arrived  at  this  point,  if  we  carry  our  ideas  only 
one  thought  farther,  we  shall  see,  perhaps,  the  true  reason,  at 
least  a  very  good  reason,  for  our  happiness  :  why  the  Creator, 
instead  of  making  one  immense  world,  extending  over  an  immense 
quantity  of  space,  has  preferred  dividing  that  quantity  of  matter 
into  several  distinct  and  separate  worlds,  which  we  call  planets, 
of  which  our  earth  is  one.  But  before  I  explain  my  ideas  upon 
this  subject,  it  is  necessary  (not  for  the  sake  of  those  that  already 
know,  but  for  those  who  do  not)  to  show  what  the  system  of  the 
universe  is. 

That  part  of  the  universe  that  is  called  the  solar  system  (mean- 
ing the  system  of  worlds  to  which  our  earth  belongs,  and  of  which 
Sol,  or  in  English  language,  the  Sun,  is  the  centre)  consists,  be- 
sides the  Sun,  of  six  distinct  orbs,  or  planets,  or  worlds,  besides 
the  secondary  bodies,  called  the  satellites  or  moons,  of  which  our 
earth  has  one  that  attends  her  in  her  annual  revolution  round  the 
sun,  in  like  manner  as  the  other  satellites  or  moons  attend  the 
planets  or  worlds  to  which  they  severally  belong,  as  may  be  seen 
by  the  assistance  of  the  telescope. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

The  Sun  is  the  centre,  round  which  those  six  worlds  or  planets 
revolve  at  different  distances  therefrom,  and  in  circles  concen- 
trate to  each  other.  Each  world  keeps  constantly  in  nearly  the 
same  track  round  the  Sun,  and  continues,  at  the  same  time,  turn- 
ing round  itself,  in  nearly  an  upright  position,  as  a  top  turns 
round  itself  when  it  is  spinning  on  the  ground,  and  leans  a  little 
sideways. 

It  is  this  leaning  of  the  earth  (23  l-'i  degrees)  that  occasions 
summer  and  winter,  and  the  different  length  of  days  and  nights. 
If  the  earth  turned  round  itself  in  a  position  perpendicular  to  the 
plane  or  level  of  the  circle  it  moves  in  around  the  Sun,  as  a  top 
turns  round  when  it  stands  erect  on  the  ground,  the  days  and 
nights  would  be  always  of  the  same  length,  twelve' hours  day  and 
twelve  hours  night,  and  the  seasons  would  be  uniformly  the  same 
throughout  the  year. 

Every  time  that  a  planet  (our  earth  for  example)  turns  round 
itself,  it  makes  what  we  call  day  and  night ;  and  every  time  it 
goes  entirely  round  the  Sun,  it  makes  what  we  call  a  year,  con- 
sequently our  world  turns  three  hundred  and  sixty-five  times  round 
itself,  in  going  once  round  the  sun.* 

The  names  that  the  ancients  gave  to  those  six  worlds,  and 
which  are  still  called  by  the  same  names,  are  Mercury,  Venus,  this 
world  that  we  call  ours,  Mars,  Jupiter,  and  Saturn.  They  ap- 
pear larger  to  the  eye  than  the  stars,  being  many  millions  miles 
nearer  to  our  earth  than  any  of  the  stars  are.  The  planet  Venus 
is  that  which  is  called  the  evening  star,  and  sometimes  the  morn- 
ing star,  as  she  happens  to  set  after,  or  rise  before  the  Sun, 
which,  in  either  case,  is  never  more  than  three  hours. 

The  Sun,  as  before  said,  being  the  centre,  the  planet,  or  world, 
nearest  the  Sun,  is  Mercury  ;  his  distance  from  the  Sun  is  thir- 
ty-four million  miles,  and  he  moves  round  in  a  circle  always  at 
that  distance  from  the  Sun,  as  a  top  may  be  supposed  to  spin 
round  in  the  track  in  which  a  horse  goes  in  a  mill.  The  second 
world  is  Venus,  she  is  fifty-seven  million  miles  distant  from  the 
Sun,  and  consequently  moves  round  in  a  circle  much  greater  than 
that  of  Mercury.  The  third  world  is  that  we  inhabit,  and  which, 
is  eighty-eight  million  miles  distant  from  the  Sun,  and  conse- 
quently moves  round  in  a  circle  greater  than  that  of  Venus. — 
The  fourth  world  is  Mars;  he  is  distant  from  the  Sun  one  hundred 
and  thirty-four  million  miles,  and  consequently  moves  round  in  a 
circle  greater  than  that  of  our  earth.  The  fifth  is  Jupiter;  he  is 
distant  from  the  Sun  five  hundred  and  fifty-seven  million  miles, 
and  consequently  moves  round  in  a  circle  greater  than  that  of 
Mars.  The  sixth  world  is  Saturn,  he  is  distant  from  the  Sun  seven 
hundred  and  sixty-three  million  miles,  and  consequently  moves 

*  Those  who  supposed  that  the  Sun  went  round  the  earth  every  24  hours  made  the 
same  mistake  in  idea  that  a  cook  would  do  in  fact,  that  should  make  the  fire  go  round 
the  meat,  instead  of  the  meat  turning  round  itself  towards  the  fire. 


60  THE    AGE    OP    REASON. 

round  in  a  circle  that  surrounds  the  circles,  or  orbits,  of  all  the 
other  worlds  or  planets. 

The  space,  therefore,  in  the  air,  or  in  the  immensity  of  space, 
that  our  solar  system  takes  up  for  the  several  worlds  to  perform 
their  revolutions  in  round  the  Sun,  is  of  the  extent  in  a  straight 
line  of  the  whole  diameter  of  the*  orbit  or  circle,  in  which  Saturn 
moves  round  the  Sun,  which  being  double  his  distance  from  the 
Sun,  is  fifteen  hundred  and  twenty-six  million  miles  ;  and  its  cir- 
cular extent  is  nearly  five  thousand  million  ;  and  its  globical  con- 
tent is  almost  three  thousand  five  hundred  million  times  three 
thousand  five  hundred  million  square  miles.* 

But  this,  immense  as  it  is,  is  only  one  system  of  worlds.  Beyond 
this,  at  a  vast  distance  into  space,  far  beyond  all  power  of  calcula- 
tion, are  the  stars  called  the  fixed  stars.  They  are  called  fixed, 
because  they  have  no  revolutionary  motion,  as  the  six  worlds  or 
planets  have  that  I  have  been  describing.  Those  fixed  stars  con- 
tinue always  at  the  same  distance  from  each  other,  and  always  in 
the  same  place,  as  the  sun  does  in  the  centre  of  our  system.  The 
probability,  therefore,  is,  that  each  of  those  fixed  stars  is  also  a 
sun,  round  which  another  system  of  worlds  or  planets,  though  too 
remote  for  us  to  discover,  performs  its  revolutions,  as  our  system 
of  worlds  does  round  our  central  sun. 

By  this  easy  progression  of  ideas,  the  immensity  of  space  will 
appear  to  us  to  be  filled  with  systems  of  worlds  ;  and  that  no  part 
of  space  lies  at  waste,  any  more  than  any  part  of  the  globe  or  earth 
and  water  is  left  unoccupied. 

Having  thus  endeavoured  to  convey,  in  a  familiar  and  easy  man- 
ner, some  idea  of  the  structure  of  the  universe,  I  return  to  explain 
what  I  before  alluded  to,  namely,  the  groat  benefits  arising  to  man 
in  consequence  of  the  Creator  having  made  a  plurality  of  worlds, 
such  as  our  system  is,  consisting  of  a  central  sun  and  six  worlds, 
besides  satellites,  in  preference  to  that  of  creating  one  world  only 
of  a  vast  extent. 

It  is  an  idea  I  have  never  lost  sight  of,  that  all  our  knowledge 
of  science  is  derived  from  the  revolutions  (exhibited  to  our  eye, 
and  from  thence  to  our  understanding)  which  those  several  planets 

*  If  it  should  be  asked,  how  can  man  know  these  things  1  I  have  one  plain  answer 
to  give,  which  is,  that  man  knows  how  to  calculate  an  eclipse,  and  also  how  to  calcu- 
late to  a  minute  of  time  when  the  planet  Venus,  in  making  her  revolutions  round  the 
Sun,  will  come  in  a  straight  line  between  our  earth  and  the  Sun,  and  will  appear  to 
us  about  the  size  of  a  large  pea  passing  across  the  face  of  the  Sun.  This  happens 
but  twice  in  about  an  hundred  years,  at  the  distance  of  about  eight  years  from  each 
other,  and  has  happened  twice  in  our  time,  both  of  which  were  foreknown  by  calcula- 
tion. It  can  also  be  known  when  they  will  happen  again  for  a  thousand  years  to 
come,  or  to  any  oth-  r  portion  of  time.'  As,  therefore,  man  could  not  be  able  to  do 
these  things  if  he  did  not  understand  the  solar  system,  and  the  manner  in  which  the 
revolutions  of  the  several  planets  or  worlds  are  performed,  the  fact  of  calculating  an 
eclipse,  or  a  transit  of  Venus,  is  a  proof  in  point  that  the  knowledge  exists  ;  and  as  to 
a  few  thousand,  or  even  a  few  million  miles,  more  or  less,  it  makes  scarcely  any  sen- 
ible  difference  in  such  immense  distances. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  61 

or  worlds,  of  which  our  system  is  composed,  make  in  their  circuit 
round  the  sun. 

Had  then  the  quantity  of  matter  which  these  six  worlds  contain 
been  blended  into  one  solitary  globe,  the  consequence  to  us  would 
have  been,  that  either  no  revolutionary  motion  would  been  exist- 
ed, or  not  a  sufficiency  of  it  to  give  us  the  idea  and  the  knowledge 
of  science  we  now  have  ;  and  it  is  from  the  sciences  that  all  the 
mechanical  arts  that  contributes  so  much  to  our  earthly  felicity 
and  comfort,  are  derived 

As,  therefore,  the  Creator  made  nothing  in  vain,  so  also  must  it 
be  believed  that  he  organized  the  structure  of  the  universe  in  the 
most  advantageous  manner  for  the  benefit  of  man  ;  and  as  we  see, 
and  from  experience  feel,  the  benefits  we  derive  from  the  struc- 
ture of  the  universe,  formed  as  it  is,  which  benefits  we  should  not 
have  had  the  opportunity  of  enjoying,  if  the  structure,  so  far  as 
relates  to  our  system,  had  been  a  solitary  globe — we  can  discover 
at  least  one  reason  why  a  plurality  of  worlds  has  been-  made,  and 
that  reason  calls  forth  the  devotional  gratitude  of  man,  as  well  as 
his  admiration. 

But  it  is  not  to  us,  the  inhabitants  of  tms  globe,  only,  that  the 
benefits  arising  from  a  plurality  of  worlds  are  limited.  The  in- 
habitants of  each  of  the  worlds  of  which  our  system  is  composed, 
enjoy  the  same  opportunities  of  knowledge  as  we  do.  They  be- 
hold the  revolutionary  motions  of  our  earth,  as  we  behold  theirs. 
All  the  planets  revolve  in  sight  of  each  other  ;  and,  therefore,  the 
same  universal  school  of  science  presents  itself  to  all. 

Neither  does  the  knowledge  stop  here.  The  system  of  worlds 
next  to  us  exhibits,  in  its  revolutions,  the  same  principles  and 
school  of  science,  to  the  inhabitants  of  their  system,  as  our  system 
does  to  us,  and  in  like  manner  throughout  the  immensity  of  space. 

Our  ideas,  not  only  of  the  almightiness  of  the  Creator,  but  of 
his  wisdom  and  his  beneficence,  become  enlarged  in  proportion 
as  we  contemplate  the  extent  and  the  structure  of  the  universe. 
The  solitary  idea  of  a  solitary  world,  rolling  or  at  rest  in  the  im- 
mense ocean  of  space,  gives  place  to  the  cheerful  idea  of  a  soci- 
ety of  worlds,  so  happily  contrived  as  to  administer,  even  by  their 
motion,  instruction  to  man.  We  see  our  own  earth  filled  with 
abundance  ;  but  we  forget  to  consider  how  much  of  that  abun- 
dance is  owing  to  the  scientific  knowledge  thef  vast  machinery  of 
the  universe  has  unfolded. 

But,  in  the  midst  of  those  reflections,  what  are  we  to  think  of 
the  Christian  system  of  faith,  that  forms  itself  upon  the  idea  of  only 
one  world,  and  that  of  no  greater  extent,  as  is  before  shown,  than 
twenty-five  thousand  miles  ?  An  extent  which  a  man,  walking  at 
the  rate  of  three  miles  an  hour,  for  twelve  hours  in  the  day,  could 
he  keep  on  in  a  circular  direction,  would  walk  entirely  round  in 
less  than  two  years.  Alas  !  what  is  this  to  the  mighty  ocean  of 
space,  and  the  almighty  power  of  the  Creator  ! 
6 


62  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

From  whence  then  could  arise  the  solitaryrand  strange  conceit, 
that  the  Almighty,  who  had  millions  of  worlds  equally  dependent 
on  his  protection,  should  quit  the  care  of  all  the  rest,  and  come  to 
die  in  our  world,  because,  they  say  one  man  and  one  woman  had 
eaten  an  apple  !  And,  on  the  other  hand,  are  we  to  suppose  that 
every  world  in  the  boundless  creation,  had  an  Eve,  an  apple,  a 
serpent  and  a  redeemer  ?  In  this  case,  the  person  who  is  irrever- 
ently called  the  Son  of  Goct,  and  sometimes  God  himself,  would 
have  nothing  else  to  do  than  to  travel  from  world  to  world,  in  an 
endless  succession  of  death,  with  scarcely  a  momentary  interVal 
of  life. 

It  has  been  by  rejecting  the  evidence,  that  the  word  or  works 
of  God  in  the  creation  affords  to  our  senses,  and  the  action  of  our 
reason  upon  that  evidence,  that  so  many  wild  and  whimsical  sys- 
tems of  faith,  and  of  religion,  have  been  fabricated  and  set  up. 
Thej-e  may  be  many  systems  of  religion,  that  so  fer  from  being 
morally  ba*d,  are  in  many  respects  morally  good  :  but  there  can  be 
but  ONE  that  is  true  ;  and  that  one  necessarily  must,  as  it  ever 
will,  be  in  all  things  consistent  with  the  ever  existing  word  of  God 
that  we  behold  i*»  his  works.  But  such  is  the  strange  construction 
of  the  Christian  system  of  faith,  that  every  evidence  the  Heavens 
afford  to  man,  either  directly  contradicts  it,  or  renders  it  absurd. 

It  is  possible  to  believe,  and  I  always  feel  pleasure  in  encour- 
aging myself  to  believe  it,  that  there  have  been  men  in  the  world 
who  persuade  themselves  that,  what  is  called  a  pious  fraud,  might, 
at  least  under  particular  circumstances,  be  productive  of  some 
good.  But  the  fraud  being  once  established,  could  not  afterwards 
be  explained  ;  for  it  is  with  a  pious  fraud  as  with  a  bad  action,  it 
begets  a  calamitous  necessity  of  going  on. 

The  persons  who  first  preached  the  Christian  system  of  faith, 
°«xd  in  some  measure  combined  it  with  the  morality  preached  by 
Jesus  Christ,  might  persuade  themselves  that  it  was  better  than 
the  heathen  mythology  that  then  prevailed.  From  the  first 
preachers  the  fraud  went  on  to  the  second,  and  to  the  third,  till 
the  idea  of  its  being  a  pious  fraud  became  lost  in  the  belief  of  its 
being  true  ;  and  that  belief  became  again  encouraged  by  the  in- 
terest of  those  who  made  a  livelihood  by  preaching  it. 

But  though  such  a  belief  might,  by  such  means,  be  rendered 
almost  general  among  the  laity,  it  is  next  to  impossible  to  acount 
for  the  continual  persecution  carried  on  by  the  church,  for  seve- 
ral hundred  years,  against  the  sciences,  and  against  the  profess- 
ors of  sciences,  if  the  church  had  not  some  record  or  tradition, 
that  it  was  originally  no  other  than  a  pious  fraud,  or  did  not  fore- 
see, that  it  could  not  be  maintained  against  the  evidence  that  the 
structure  of  the  universe  afforded. 

Having  thus  shown  the  irreconcilable  inconsistencies  between 
the  real  word  of  God  existing  in  the  universe  and  that  which  is 
called  the  ivord  of  God.  as  shewn  to  us  in  a  printed  book  that  any 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  63 

man  might  make,  I  proceed  to  speak  of  the  three  principal  means 
that  have  been  employed  in  all  ages,  and  perhaps  in  all  countries, 
to  impose  upon  mankind. 

Those  three  means  are  Mystery,  Miracle,  and  Prophecy.  The 
two  first  are  incompatible  with  true  religion,  and  the  third  ought 
always  to  be  suspected. 

With  respect  to  mystery  every  thing  we  behold  id,  in  one  sense, 
a  mystery  to  us.  Our  own  existence  is  a  mystery  ;  the  whole 
vegetable  world  is  a  mystery.  We  cannot  account  how  it  is  that 
an  acornj  when  put  into  the  ground,  is  made  to  develope  itself, 
and  become  an  oak.  We  know  not  how  it  is  that  the  seed  we 
sow  unfolds  and  multiplies  itself,  and  returns  to  us  such  an  abun- 
dant interest  for  so  small  a  capital. 

The  fact,  however,  as  distinct  from  the  operating  cause,  is  not 
a  mystery,  because  we  see  it ;  and  we  know  also  the  means  we 
are  to  use,  which  is  no  other  than  putting  seed  in  the  ground. 
We  know,  therefore,  as  much  as  is  necessary  for  us  to  know;  and 
that  part  of  the  operation  that  we  do  not  know,  and  which  if  we 
did  we  could  not  perform,  the  Creator  takes  upon  himself  and 
performs  it  for  us.  We  are,  therefore,  better  off  than  if  we  had 
been  let  into  the  secret,  and  left  to  do  it  for  ourselves. 

But  though  every  created  thing  is,  in  this  sense,  a  mystery,  the 
word  mystery  cannot  be  applied  to  moral  truth,  any  more  than  ob- 
scurity can  be  applied  to  light.  The  God  in  whom  we  believe  is  a 
God  of  moral  truth,  and  not  a  God  of  m'ystery  or  obscurity.  Mys- 
tery is  the  antagonist  of  truth.  It  is  a  fog  of  human  invention,  that 
obscures  truth,  and  represents  it  in  distortion.  Truth  never  en- 
velopes itself  in  mystery  ;  and  the  mystery  in  which  it  is  at  any 
time  enveloped  is  the  work  of  its  antagonist,  and  never  of  itself. 

Religion,  therefore,  being  the  belief  of  a  God,  and  the  practice 
of  moral  truth,  cannot  have  connection  with  mystery.  The  belief 
of  a  God,  so  far  from  having  any  thing  of  mystery  in  it,  is  of  all 
beliefs  the  most  easy,  because  it  arises  to  us,  as  is  before  observed, 
out  of  necessity.  And  the  practice  of  moral  truth,  or,  in  other 
words,  a  practical  imitation  of  the  moral  goodness  of  God,  is  no 
other  than  our  acting  towards  each  other  as  he  acts  benignly  to- 
wards all.  We  cannot  serve  God  in  the  manner  we  serve  those 
who  cannot  do  without  such  service  ;  and  therefore  the  only  idea 
we  can  have  of  serving  God,  is  that  of  contributing  to  the  happi- 
ness of  the  living  creation  that  God  has  made.  This  cannot  be 
done  by  retiring  ourselves  from  the  society  of  the  world,  and  spend- 
ing a  recluse  life  in  selfish  devotion. 

The  very  nature  and  design  of  religion,  if  I  may  so  express  it, 
prove,  even  to  demonstration,  that  it  must  be  free  from  every  thing 
of  mystery,  and  unincumbered  with  every  thing  that  is  mysterious. 
Religion,  considered  as  a  duty,  is  incumbent  upon  every  living  soul 
alike,  and,  therefore,  must  be  on  a  level  to  the  understanding  and 
comprehension  of  all.  Man  does  not  learn  religion  as  he  learns 


64  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

the  secrets  and  mysteries  of  a  trade.  He  learns  the  theory  of 
religion  by  reflection.  It  arises  out  of  the  action  of  his  own  mind 
upon  the  things  which  he  sees,  or  upon  what  he  may  happen  to 
hear  or  to  read,  and  the  practice  joins  itself  thereto. 

When  men,  whether  from  policy,  or  pious  fraud,  set  up  systems 
of  religion  incompatible  with  the  word  or  works  of  God  in  the  cre- 
ation, and  not  only  above,  but  repugnant  to  human  comprehen- 
sion, they  were  under  the  necessity  of  inventing  or  adopting  a 
word  that  should  serve  as  a  bar  to  all  questions,  inquiries,  and 
speculations.  The  word  mystery  answered  this  purpose  ;  and  thus 
it  has  happened  that  religion,  which  in  itself  is  without  mystery, 
has  been  corrupted  into  a  fog  of  mysteries. 

As  mystery  answered  all  general  purposes,  miracle  followed  as 
an  occasional  auxiliary.  The  former  served  to  bewilder  the  mind  ; 
the  latter  to  puzzle  the  senses.  The  one  was  the  lingo,  the  other 
the  ledgerdemain. 

But  before  going  further  into  this  subject,  it  will  be  proper  to 
inquire  what  is  to  be  understood  by  a  miracle. 

In  the  same  sense  that  every  thing  may  be  said  to  be  a  mystery, 
so  also  may  it  be  said  that  every  thing  is  a  miracle,  and  that  no  one 
thing  is  a  greater  miracle  than  another.  The  elephant,  though  lar- 
ger, is  not  a  greater  miracle  than  a  mite:  nor  a  mountain  a  greater 
miracle  than  an  atom.  To  an  Almighty  power,  it  is  no  more  diffi- 
cult to  make  the  one  than  the  other ;  and  no  more  difficult  to 
make  a  million  of  worlds  than  to  make  one.  Every  thing,  there- 
fore, is  a  miracle  in  one  sense,  whilst  in  the  other  sense,  there  is 
no  such  thing  as  a  miracle.  It  is  a  miracle  when  compared  to  our 
power,  and  to  our  comprehension  ;  it  is  not  a  miracle  compared 
to  the  power  that  performs  it ;  but  as  nothing  in  this  description 
conveys  the  idea  that  is  affixed  to  the  word  miracle,  it  is  necessary 
to  carry  the  inquiry  further. 

Mankind  have  conceived  to  themselves  certain  laws,  by  which 
what  they  call  nature  is  supposed  to  act ;  and  that  a  miracle  is 
something  contrary  to  the  operation  and  effect  of  those  laws  ;  but 
unless  we  know  the  whole  extent  of  those  laws,  and  of  what  are 
commonly  called  the  powers  of  nature,  we  are  not  able  to  judge 
whether  any  thing  that  may  appear  to  us  wonderful  or  miraculous, 
be  within,  or  be  beyond,  or  be  contrary  to  her  natural  power  of 
acting. 

The  ascension  of  a  man  several  miles  high  into  the  air,  would 
have  eyery  thing  in  it  that  constitutes  the  idea  of  a  miracle,  if  it 
were  not  known  that  a  species  of  air  can  be  generated  several  times 
lighter  than  the  common  atmospheric  air,  and  yet  possess  elasticity 
enough  to  prevent  the  balloon,  in  which  that  light  air  is  enclosed, 
from  being  compressed  into  as  many  times  less  hulk,  by  the  com- 
mon air  that  surrounds  it.  In  like  manner,  extracting  flames  or 
sparks  of  fire  from  the  human  body,  as  visible  as  from  a  steel  struck 
with  a  flint,  and  causing  iron  or  steel  to  move  without  any  visible 


THE    A£E    OF    REASON.  65 

agent,  would  also  give  the  idea  of  a  miracle,  if  we  were  not  ac- 
quainted with  electricity  and  magnetism  ;  so  also  would  many  other 
experiments  in  natural  philosophy,  to  those  who  are  not  acquaint- 
ed with  the  subject.  The  restoring  persons  to  life,  who  are  to  ap- 
pearance dead,  as  is  practised  upon  drowned  persons,  would  also 
be  a  miracle,  if  it  were  not  known  that  animation  is  capable  of  be- 
ing suspended  without  being  extinct. 

Besides  these,  there  are  performances  by  slight  of  hand,  and 
by  persons  acting  in  concert,  that  have  a  miraculous  appearance, 
which  when  known,  are  thought  nothing  of.  And,  besides  these, 
there  are  mechanical  and  optical  deceptions.  There  is  now  an  ex- 
hibition in  Paris  of  ghosts  or  spectres,  which,  though  it  is  not  im- 
posed upon  the  spectators,  as  a  fact,  has  an  astonishing  appearance. 
As,  therefore,  we  know  not  the  extent  to  which  either  nature  or 
art  can  go,  there  is  no  criterion  to  determine  what  a  miracle  is  ; 
and  mankind,  in  giving  credit  to  appearances,  under  the  idea 
of  their  being  miracles,  are  subject  to  be  continually  imposed 
upon. 

Since  then  appearances  are  so  capable  of  deceiving,  and  things 
not  real  have  a  strong  resemblance  to  things  that  are,  nothing  can 
be  more  inconsistent  than  to  suppose  that  the  Almighty  would 
make  use  of  means,  such  as  are  called  miracles,  that  would  sub- 
ject the  person  who  performed  them  to  the  suspicion  of  being  an 
impostor,  and  the  person  who  related  them  to  be  suspected  of  ly- 
ing, and  the  doctrine  intended  to  be  supported  thereby  to  be  sus- 
pected as  a  fabulous  invention. 

Of  all  the  modes  of  evidence  that  ever  were  invented  to  obtain 
belief  to  any  system  or  opinion  to  which  the  name  of  religion 
has  been  given,  that  of  miracle,  however  successful  the  imposition 
may  have  been,  is  the  most  inconsistent.  For,  in  the  first  place, 
whenever  recourse  is  had  to  show,  for  the  purpose  of  procuring 
that  belief,  (for  a  miracle,  under  any  idea  of  the  word,  is  a  show) 
it  implies  a  lameness  or  weakness  in  the  doctrine  that  is  preach- 
ed. And,  in  the  second  place,  it  is  degrading  the  Almighty  into 
the  character  of  a  show-man,  playing  tricks  to  amuse  and  make 
the  people  stare  and  wonder.  It  is  also  the  most  equivocal  sort  of 
evidence  that  can  be  set  up  ;  for  the  belief  is  not  to  depend  upon 
the  thing  called  a  miracle,  but  upon  the  credit  of  the  reporter,  who 
says  that  he  saw  it ;  and,  therefore,  the  thing,  were  it  true,  would 
have  no  better  chance  of  being  believed  than  if  it  were  a  lie. 

Suppose  I  were  to  say,  that  when  I  sat  down  to  write  this  book, 
a  hand  presented  itself  in  the  air,  took  up  the  pen  arid  wrote  every 
word  that  is  herein  written  ;  would  any  body  believe  me  ?  certain- 
ly they  would  not.  Would  they  believe  me  a  whit  the  more  if  the 
thing  had  been  a  fact ;  certainly  they  would  not.  Since  then  a 
real  miracle,  were  it  to  happen,  would  be  subject  to  the  same  fate 
as  the  falsehood,  the  inconsistency  becomes  the  greater,  of  sup- 
posing the  Almighty  would  make  use  of  means  that  would  not  an- 
6* 


66  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

swer  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  intended,  even  if  they 
were  real. 

If  we  are  to  suppose  a  miracle  to  be  something  so  entirely  out 
of  the  course  of  what  is  called  nature,  that  she  must  go  out  of  that 
course  to  accomplish  it,  and  we  see  an  account  given  of  such  mira- 
cle by  the  person  who  said  he  saw  it,  it  raises  a  question  in  the 
mind  very  easily  decided,  which  is,  is  it  more  probable  that  nature 
should  go  out  of  her  course,  or  that  a  man  should  -tell  a  lie  ?  We 
have  never  seen,  in  our  time,  nature  go  out  of  her  course  ;  but  we 
have  good  reason  to  believe  that  millions  of  lies  have  been  told  in 
the  same  time  ;  it  is  therefore,  at  least  millions  to  one,  that  the  re- 
porter of  a  miracle  tells  a  lie. 

The  story  of  the  whale  swallowing  Jonah,  though  a  whale  is 
large  enough  to  do  it,  borders  greatly  on  the  marvellous  ;  but  it 
would  have  approached  nearer  to  the  idea  of  miracle,  if  Jonah 
had  swallowed  the  whale.  In  this,  which  may  serve  for  all  cases 
of  miracles,  the  matter  would  decide  itself,  as  before  stated,  name- 
ly, it  is  more  probable  that  a  man  should  have  swallowed  a  whale 
or  told  a  lie. 

But  supposing  that  Jonah  had  really  swallowed  the  whale,  and 
gone  with  it  in  his  belly  to  Ninevah,  and  to  convince  the  people 
that  it  was  true,  have  cast  it  up  in  their  sight,  of  the  full  length  and 
size  of  a  whale,  would  they  not  have  believed  him  to  have  been 
the  devil  instead  of  a  prophet  ?  or,  if  the  whale  had  carried  Jonah 
to  Ninevah,  and  cast  him  up  in  the  same  public  manner,  would 
they  not  have  believed  the  whale  to  have  been  the  devil,  and 
Jonah  one  of  his  imps  ? 

The  most  extraordinary  of  all  the  things  called  miracles,  related 
in  the  New  Testament,  is  that  of  the  devil  flying  away  with  Jesus 
Christ,  and  carrying  him  to  the  top  of  a  high  mountain  ,*  and  to  the 
top  of  the  highest  pinnacle  of  the  temple,  and  showing  him  and 
promising  to  him  all  the  kingdoms  of  the  world.  How  happened  it 
that  he  did  not  discover  America  ;  or  is  it  only  with  kingdoms  that 
his  sooty  highness  has  any  interest  ? 

I  have  too  much  respect  for  the  moral  character  of  Christ,  to 
believe  that  he  told  this  whale  of  a  miracle  himself;  neither  is  it 
easy  to  account  for  what  purpose  it  could  have  been  fabricated,  un- 
less it  were  to  impose  upon  the  connoisseurs  of  miracles,  as  is 
sometimes  practised  upon  the  connoisseurs  of  Queen  Anne's  far- 
things, and  collectors  of  relics  and  antiquities  ;  or  to  render  the 
belief  of  miracles,  ridiculous,  by  outdoing  miracles,  as  Don  Quix- 
otte  outdid  chivalry  ;  or  to  embarrass  the  belief  of  miracles,  by 
making  it  doubtful  by  what  power,  whether  of  God  or  the  Devil, 
any  thing  called  a  miracle  was  performed.  It  requires,  however, 
a  great  deal  of  faith  in  the  devil  to  believe  this  miracle. 

In  every  point  of  vie  win  which  those  things  called  miracles  can 
be  placed  and  considered,  the  reality  of  them  is  improbable,  and 
their  existence  unnecessary.  They  would  not,  as  before  observed, 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  67 

answer  any  useful  purpose,  even  if  they  were  true  ;  for  it  is  more 
difficult  to  obtain  belief  to  a  miracle,  than  to  a  principle  evidently 
moral,  without  any  miracle.  Moral  principle  speaks  universally  for 
itself.  Miracle  could  be  but  a  thing  of  the  moment,  and  seen  but  by 
a  few  ;  after  this  it  requires  a  transfer  of  faith  from. God  to  man,  to 
believe  a  miracle  upon  man's  report.  Instead  therefore  of  admit- 
ting the  recitals  of  miracles  as  evidence  of  any  system  of  religion 
being  true,  they  ought  to  be  considered  as  symptoms  of  its  being 
fabulous.  It  is  necessary  to  the  full  and  upright  character  of  truth, 
that  it  rejects  the  crutch  ;  and  it  is  consistent  with  the  character 
of  fable,  to  seek  the  aid  that  truth  rejects.  Thus  much  for  mys- 
tery and  miracle. 

As  mystery  and  miracle  took  charge  of  the  past  and  the  present, 
prophecy  took  charge  of  the  future.,  and  rounded  the  tenses  of 
faith.  It  was  not  sufficient  to  know  what  had  been  done,  but  what 
would  be  done.  The  supposed  prophet  was  the  supposed  histori- 
an of  times  to  come  ;  and  if  he  happened,  in  shooting  with  a  long 
bow  of  a  thousand  years,  to  strike  within  a  thousand  miles  of  a 
mark,  the  ingenuity  of  posterity  could  make  it  point-blank  ;  and  if 
he  happened  to  be  directly  wrong,  it  was  only  to  suppose,  as  in  the 
case  of  Jonah  and  Ninevah,  that  God  had  repented  himself  and 
changed  his  mind.  What  a  fool  do  fabulous  systems  make  of 
man  ! 

It  has  been  shown,  in  a  former  part  of  this  work,  that,  the  ori- 
ginal meaning  of  the  words  prophet  and  prophesying  has  been  chan- 
ged, and  that  a  prophet,  in  the  sense  of  the  word  as  now  used,  is  a 
creature  of  modern  invention  ;  and  it  is  owing  to  this  change  in  the 
meaning  of  the  words,  that  the  flights  and  metaphors  of  the  Jew- 
ish poets  and  phrases  and  expressions  now  rendered  obscure,  by 
our  not  being  acquainted  with  the  local  circumstances  to  which 
they  applied  at  the  time  they  were  used,  have  been  erected  into 
prophecies,  and  made  to  bend  to  explanations,  at  the  will  and  whim- 
sical conceits  of  sectaries,  expounders  and  commentators.  Every 
thing  unintelligible  was  prophetical,  and  every  thing  insignificant 
was  typical.  A  blunder  would  have  served  as  a  prophecy  ;  and  a 
dish-clout  for  a  type. 

If  by  a  prophet  we  are  to  suppose  a  man,  to  whom  the  Almighty 
communicated  some  event  that  would  take  place  in  future,  either 
there  were  such  men,  or  there  were  not.  If  there  were,  it  is  con- 
sistent to  believe  that  the  event  so  communicated,  would  be  told 
in  terms  that  could  be  understood  ;  and  not  related  in  such  a  loose 
and  obscure  manner  as  to  be  out  of  the  comprehensions  of  those 
that  heard  it,  and  so  equivocal  as  to  fit  almost  any  circumstance 
that  might  happen  afterwards.  It  is  conceiving  very  irreverently 
of  the  Almighty  to  suppose  he  would  deal  in  this  jesting  manner 
with  mankind  ;  yet  all  the  things  called  prophecies  in  the  book 
called  the  Bible,  come  under  this  description 

But  it  is  with  prophecy  as  it  is  with  miracle  ;  it  could  not  an- 


68  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

swer  the  purpose  even  if  it  were  real.  Those  to  whom  a  prophecy 
should  be  told,  could  not  tell  whether  the  man  prophesied  or  lied., 
or  whether  it  had  been  revealed  to  him,  or  whether  he  conceited 
it  ;  and  if  the  thing  that  he  prophesied,  or  intended  to  prophecy, 
should  happen,  or  something  like  it,  among  the  multitude  of  things 
that  are  daily  happening,  nobody  could  again  know  whether  he 
foreknew  it,  or  guessed  at  it,  or  whether  it  was  accidental.  A 
prophet,  therefore,  is  a  character  useless  and  unnecessary  ;  and 
the  safe  side  of  the  case  is,  to  guard  against  being  imposed  upon 
by  not  giving  credit  to  such  relations. 

Upon  the  whole,  mystery,  miracle,  and  prophecy,  are  appen- 
dages that  belong  to  fabulous  and  not  to  true  religion.  They  are 
the  means  by  which  so  many  Lo  heres  !  and  Lo  thercs  !  have  been 
spread  about  the  world,  and  religion  been  made  into  a  trade. — 
The  success  of  one  impostor  gave  encouragement  to  another,  and 
the  quieting  salvo  of  doing  some  good  by  keeping  up  a  pious  fraud, 
protected  them  from  remorse. 

Having  now  extended  the  subject  to  a  greater  length  than  I  first 
intended,  I  shall  bring  it  to  a  close  by  abstracting  a  summary  from 
the  whole. 

First — That  the  idea  or  belief  of  a  word  of  God,  existing  in 
print,  or  in  writing,  or  in  speech,  is  inconsistent  in  itself  for  rea- 
sons already  assigned.  These  reasons,  among  many  others,  are 
the  want  of  an  universal  language ;  the  mutability  of  language  ; 
the  errors  to  which  translations  are  subject ;  the  possibility  of  to- 
tally suppressing  such  a  word  ;  the  probability  of  altering  it,  or  of 
fabricating  the  whole,  and  imposing  it  upon  the  world. 

Secondly — That  the  Creation  we  behold  is  the  real  and  ever 
existing  word  of  God,  in  which  we  cannot  be  deceived.  It  pro- 
claims his  power,  it  demonstrates  his  wisdom,  it  manifests  his 
goodness  and  beneficence. 

Thirdly — That  the  moral  duty  of  man  consists  in  imitating  the 
moral  goodness  and  beneficence  of  God  manifested  in  the  Creation 
towards  all  his  creatures.  That  seeing  as  we  daily  do  the  goodness 
of  God  to  all  men,  it  is  an  example  calling  upon  all  men  to  practise 
the  same  towards  each  other  ;  and  consequently  that  every  thing 
of  persecution  and  revenge  between  man  and  man,  and  every 
thing  of  cruelty  to  animals,  is  a  violation  of  moral  duty. 

I  trouble  not  myself  about  the  manner  of  future  existence.  I 
content  myself  with  believing,  even  to  positive  conviction,  that 
the  power  that  gave  me  existence  is  able  to  continue  it>  in  any 
form  arid  manner  he  pleases,  either  with  or  without  this  body  ;  and 
it  appears  more  probable  to  me  that  I  shall  continue  to  exist  here- 
after, than  that  I  should  have  had  existence,  as  I  now  have,  be- 
fore that  existence  began 

It  is  certain  that,  in  one  point,  all  nations  of  the  earth  and  all  re- 
ligions agree  ;  all  believe  in  a  God  ;  the  things  in  which  they  dis- 
agree, are  the  redundancies  annexed  to  that  belief ;  and  therefore, 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  69 

if  ever  an  universal  religion  should  prevail,  it  will  not  be  believing 
any  thing  new,  but  in  getting  rid  of  redundancies,  and  believing 
as  man  believed  at  first.  Adam,  if  ever  there  was  such  a  man, 
was  created  a  Deist ;  but  in  the  mean  time,  let  every  man  follow. 
as  he  has  a  right  to  do,  the  religion  and  worship  he  prefers. 


END  OF  THE  FIRST  PART 


THE 

AGE  OF  REASON. 


PART    THE    SECOND. 


PREFACE. 


I  HAVE  mentioned  hi  the  former  part  of  The  Age  of  Reason,  that 
it  had  long  been  my  intention  to  publish  my  thoughts  upon  reli- 
gion ;  but  that  I  had  originally  reserved  it  to  a  later  period  in  life, 
intending  it  to  be  the  last  work  I  should  undertake.  The  circum- 
stances, however,  which  existed  in  France  in  the  latter  end  of 
the  year  1793,  determined  me  to  delay  it  no  longer.  The  just 
and  humane  principles  of  the  revolution,  which  philosophy  had 
first  diffused,  had  been  departed  from.  The  idea,  always  dan- 
gerous to  society  as  it  is  derogatory  to  the  Almighty,  that  priests 
could  forgive  sins,  though  it  seemed  to  exist  no  longer,  had  blunt- 
ed the  feelings  of  humanity,  and  callously  prepared  men  for  the 
commission  of  all  manner  of  crimes.  The  intolerant  spirit  of  % 
church  persecutions  had  transferred  itself  into  politics  ;  the  tribu- 
nal, styled  revolutionary,  supplied  the  place  of  an  inquisition ; 
and  the  guillotine  and  the  stake  outdid  the  fire  and  foggot  of  the 
church.  I  saw  many  of  my  most  intimate  friends  destroyed  ;  oth- 
ers daily  carried  to  prison  ;  and  I  had  reason  to  believe,  and  had 
also  intimations  given  me,  that  the  same  danger  was  approaching 
myself. 

Under  these  disadvantages,  I  began  the  former  part  of  the  -Age 
of  Reason;  I  had,  besides,  neither  Bible  nor  Testament  to  refer 
to,  though  I  was  writing  against  both  ;  nor  could  I  procure  any  ; 
notwithstanding  which,  I  have  produced  a  work  that  no  Bible 
believer,  though  writing  at  his  ease,  and  with  a  library  of  church 
books  about  him,  can  refute.  Towards  the  latter  end  of  December 
of  tha{  year,  a  motion  was  made  and  carried,  to  exclude  foreigners 
from  the.  Convention.  There  were  but  two  in  it,  Anacharsia 
Cloots  and  myself ;  and  I  saw,  I  was  particularly  pointed  at  by 
Bourdon  de  1'Oise,  in  his  speech  on  that  motion. 

Conceiving,  after  this,  that  I  had  but  a  few  days  of  liberty,  I 
sat  down  and  brought  the  work  to  a  close  as  speedily  as  possible  ; 
and  I  had  not  finished  it  more  than  six  hours,  in  the  state  it  has 
since  appeared,  before  a  guard  came  there  about  three  in  the 
morning,  with  an  order  signed  by  the  two  committees  of  public 
safety  and  surety-general,  for  putting  me  in  arrestation  as  a  fot- 
eigner,  and  conveyed  me  to  the  prison  of  the  Luxembourg.  I 
contrived,  in  my  way  there,  to  call  on  Joel  Barlow,  and  I  put  the 


74  PREFACE. 

manuscript  of  the  work  into  his  hands,  as  more  safe  than  in  my 
possession  in  prison  ;  and  not  knowing  what  might  be  the  fate  in 
France,  either  of  the  writer  or  the  work,  I  addressed  it  to  the  pro- 
tection of  the  citizens  of  the  United  States. 

It  is  with  justice  that  I  say,  that  the  guard  who  executed  this 
order,  and  the  interpreter  of  the  Committee  of  General  Surety, 
who  accompanied  them  to  examine  my  papers,  treated  me  not  only 
with  civility  but  with  respect.  The  keeper  of  the  Luxembourg, 
Bennoit,  a  man  of  a  good  heart,  showed  to  me  every  friendship  in 
his  power,  as  did  also  all  his  family,  while  he  continued  in  that 
station.  He  was  removed  from,  it,  put  into  arrestation,  and  carried 
before  the  tribunal  upon  a  malignant  accusation,  but  acquitted. 

After  I  had  been  in  the  Luxembourg  about  three  weeks,  the 
Americans,  then  in  Paris,  went  in  a  body  to  the  Convention,  to 
reclaim  me  as  their  countryman  and  friend  ;  but  were  answered  by 
the  President,  Vader,  who  was  also  President  of  the  Committee 
of  Surety-General,  and  had  signed  the  order  for  my  arrestation, 
that  I  was  born  in  England.  I  heard  no  more  after  this,  from  any 
person  out  of  the  walls  of  the  prison,  till  the  fall  of  Robespierre, 
on  the  9th  of  Thermidor — July  27,  1794. 

About  two  months  before  this  event,  I  was  seized  with  a  fever, 
that  in  its  progress  had  every  symptom  of  becoming  mortal,  and 
from  the  effects  of  which  I  am  not  recovered.  It  was  then  that  I 
remembered  with  renewed  satisfaction,  and  congratulated  myself 
most  sincerely,  on  having  written  the  former  part  of  "  The  Age  of 
Reason"  I  had  then  but  little  expectation  of  surviving,  and  those 
about  me  had  less.  I  know,  therefore,  by  experience,  the  con- 
scientious trial  of  my  own  principles. 

I  was  then  with  three  chamber  comrades,  Joseph  Vanhuele,  of 
Bruges,  Charles  Bastini,  and  Michael  Robyns,  of  Louvain.  The 
unceasing  and  anxious  attention  of  these  three  friends  to  me,  by 
night  and  by  day,  I  remember  with  gratitude,  and  mention  with 
pleasure.  It  happened  that  a  physician  (Dr.  Graham)  and  a  sur- 
geon (Mr.  Bond),  part  of  the  suite  of  General  O'Hara,  were  then 
in  the  Luxembourg.  I  ask  not  myself,  whether  it  be  convenient 
to  them,  as  men  under  the  English  government,  that  I  express  to 
them  my  thanks  ;  but  I  should  reproach  myself  if  I  did  not ;  and 
also  to  the  physician  of  the  Luxembourg,  Dr.  Markoski. 

I  have  some  reason  to  believe,  because  I  cannot  discover  any 
other  cause,  that  this  illness  preserved  me  in  existence.  Among 
the  papers  of  Robespierre  that  were  examined  and  reported  upon 
to  the  Convention,  by  a  Committee  of  Deputies,  is  a  note  in  the 
hand-writing  of  Robespierre,  in  the  following  words  : — 


"  Demanderque  Thomas  Paine 
soit  decrete  d*  accusation,  pour  Vin- 
teret  de  VJimerique  auiant  que  de 
la  France.17 


To  demand  that  a  decree  of  ac- 
cusation be  passed  against  Thorn' 
as  Paine ,  for  the  interest  of  Amer- 
ica, as  well  as  of  France. 


PREFACE.  15 

From  what  cause  it  was  that  the  intention  was  not  put  in  exe- 
cution, I  know  not,  and  cannot  inform  myself ;  and  therefore  I 
ascribe  it  to  impossibility,  on  account  of  that  illness. 

The  Convention,  to  repair  as  much  as  lay  in  their  power  the  in- 
justice I  had  sustained,  invited  me  publicly  and  unanimously  to  re- 
turn into  the  Convention,  and  which  I  accepted,  to  show  I  could 
bear  an  injury  without  permitting  it  to  injure  my  principles,  or  my 
disposition.  It  is  not  because  right  principles  have  been  violated, 
that  they  are  to  be  abandoned. 

I  have  seen,  since  I  have  been  at  liberty,  several  publications 
written,  some  in  America,  and  some  in  England,  as  answers  to  the 
former  part  of  "  The  Age  of  Reason."  If  the  authors  of  these 
can  amuse  themselves  by  so  doing,  I  shall  not  interrupt  them  — 
They  may  write  against  the  work,  and  against  me>  as  much  as  they 
please  ;  they  do  me  more  service  than  they  intend,  and  I  can  have 
no  objection  that  they  write  on.  They  will  find,  however,  by  this 
second  part,  without  its  being  written  as  an  answer  to  them,  that 
they  must  return  to  their  work,  and  spin  their  cobweb  over  again. 
The  first  is  brushed  away  by  accident. 

They  will  now  find  that  I  have  furnished  myself  with  a  Bible 
and  Testament ;  and  I  can  say  also,  that  I  have  found  them  to  be 
much  worse  books  than  I  had  conceived.  If  I  have  erred  in  any 
thing,  jn  the  former  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  it  has  been  by 
speaking  better  of  some  parts  of  those  books  than  they  have  de- 
served. 

I  observe,  that  all  my  opponents  resort,  more  or  less,  to  what 
they  call  Scripture  evidence  and  Bible  authority,  to  help  them 
out.  They  are  so  little  masters  of  the  subject,  as  to  confound  a 
dispute  about  authenticity  with  a  dispute  about  doctrines  ;  I  will, 
however,  put  them  right,  that  if  they  should  be  disposed  to  write 
any  more,  they  may  know  how  to  begin. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 

October;  1795. 


THE 

AGE  OF  REASON 

PART    THE    SECOND. 


IT  has  often  been  said,  that  any  thing  may  be  proved  from  the 
Bible,  but  before  any  thing  can  be  admitted  as  proved  by  the  Bible, 
the  Bible  itself  must  be  proved  to  be  true  ;  for  if  the  Bible  be  not 
true,  or  the  truth  of  it  be  doubtful,  it  ceases  to  have  authority,  and 
cannot  be  admitted  as  proof  of  any  thing. 

It  has  been  the  practice  of  all  Christian  commentators  on  the  Bi- 
ble, and  of  all  Christian  priests  and  preachers,  to  impose  the  Bible 
on  the  world  as  a  mass  of  truth,  and  as  the  word  of  God  ;  they  have 
disputed  and  wrangled,  and  have  anathematized  euch  other  about 
the  supposable  meaning  of  particular  parts  and  passages  therein ; 
one  has  said  and  insisted  that  such  a  passage  meant  such  a  thing  ; 
another  that  it  meant  directly  the  contrary  ;  and  a  third,  that  it 
meant  neither  one  nor  the  other,  but  something  different  from  both; 
and  this  they  call  understanding  the  Bible. 

It  has  happened,  that  all  the  answers  which  I  have  seen  to  the 
former  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason  have  been  written  by  priests; 
and  these  pious  men,  like  their  predecessors,  contend  and  wrangle, 
and  pretend  to  understand  the  Bible  ;  each  understands  it  different- 
ly, but  each  understands  it  best ;  and  they  have  agreed  in  nothing, 
but  in  telling  their  readers  that  Thomas  Paine  understands  it  not. 

Now  instead  of  wasting  their  time,  and  heating  themselves  in 
fractious  disputations  about  doctrinal  points  drawn  from  the  Bible, 
these  men  ought  to  know,  and  if  they  do  not,  it  is  civility  to  inform 
them,  that  the  first  thing  to  be  understood  is,  whether  there  is  suf- 
ficient authority  for  believing  the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of  God,  or 
whether  there  is  not. 

There  are  matters  in  that  book,  said  to  be  done  by  the  express 
command  of  God,  that  are  as  shocking  to  humanity,  and  to  every 
idea  we  have  of  moral  justice,  as  any  thing  done  by  Robespierre, 
by  Carrier,  by  Joseph  le  Bon,  in  France,  by  the  English  govern- 
ment in  the  East-Indies,  or  by  any  other  assassin  in  modern  times. 
When  we  rea'd  in  the  books  ascribed  to  Moses,  Joshua,  &c.  that 
they  (the  Israelites)  came  by  stealth  upon  whole  nations  of  people, 
who,  as  the  history  itself  shows,  had  given  them  no  offence  ;  that 
7* 


78  THE    AGE    OF    REASOX. 

they  put  all  those  nations  to  the  sword ;  that  they  spared  neither  age  nor 
infancy  ;  that  they  utterly  destroyed  men,  women  and  children  ;  that 
they  left  not  a  soul  to  breathe  ;  expressions  that  are  repeated  over 
and  over  again  in  those  books,  and  that  too  with  exulting  ferocity  ; 
are  we  sure  these  things  are  facts  ?  Are  we  sure  that  the  Creator 
of  man  commissioned  these  things  to  be  done  ?  Are  we  sure  that 
the  books  that  tell  us  so  were  written  by  his  authority  ? 

It  is  not  the  antiquity  of  a  tale  that  is  any  evidence  of  its  truth  ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  a  symptom  of  its  being  fabulous  ;  for  the  more 
ancient  any  history  pretends  to  be,  the  more  it  has  the  resemblance 
of  a  fable.     The  origin  of  every  nation  is  buried  in  fabulous  tra- 
dition, and  that  of  the  Jews  is  as  much  to  be  suspected  as  any  oth- 
er.    To  charge  the  commission  of  acts  upon  the  Almighty,  which 
in  their  own  nature,  and  by  every  rule  of  moral  justice,  are  crimes, 
as  all  assassination  is,  and  more  especially  the  assassination  of  in- 
fants, is  matter  of  serious  concern.     The  Bible  tells  us,  that  those 
assassinations  were  done  by  the  express  command  of  God.     To  be- 
lieve, therefore,  the  Bible  to  be  true,  we  must  unbelieve  all  our  be- 
lief in  the  moral  justice  of  God  ;  for  wherein  could  crying  or  smil- 
ing infants  offend  ?  And  to  read  the  Bible  without  horror,  we  must 
undo  every  thing  that  is  tender,  sympathising,  and  benevolent  in 
the  heart  of  man.     Speaking  for  myself,  if  I  had  no  other  evidence 
that  the  Bible  is  fabulous,  than  the  sacrifice  I  must  make  to  be- 
lieve it  to  be  true,  that  alone  would  be  sufficient  to  determine  my 
choice.     But,  in  addition  to  all  the  moral  evidence  against  the  Bi- 
ble, I  will,  in  the  progress  of  this  work,  produce  such  other  evi- 
dence, as  even  a  priest  cannot  deny  ;  and  shew,  from  that  evidence, 
that  the  Bible  is  not  entitled  to  credit,  as  being  the  word  of  God. 
But,  before  1  proceed  to  this  examination,  I  will  show  whereia 
the  Bible  differs  from  all  other  ancient  writings  with  respect  to  the 
nature  of  the  evidence  necessary  to  establish  its  authenticity  ;  and 
this  is  the  more  proper  to  be  done,  because  the  advocates  of  the 
Bible,  in  their  answers  to  the  former  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason, 
undertake  to  say,  and  they  put  some  stress  thereon,  that  the  au 
thenticity  of  the  Bible  is  as  well  established  as  that  of  any  other 
ancient  book  ;  as  if  our  belief  of  the  one  could  become  any  rule 
for  our  belief  of  the  other. 

I  know,  however,  but  of  one  ancient  book  that  authoritatively 
challenges  universal  consent  and  belief,  and  that  is  Euclid"* 's  Ele- 
ments of  Geometry  ;*  and  the  reason  is,  because  it  is  a  book  of  self- 
evident  demonstration,  entirely  independent  of  its  author,  and  of 
every  thing  relating  to  time,  place  and  circumstance.  The  mat- 
ters contained  in  that  book  would  have  the  same  authority  they 
now  have,  had  they  been  written  by  any  other  person,  or  had  the 
work  been  anonymous,  or  had  the  author  never  been  known  ;  for 
the  identical  certainty  of  who  was  the  author,  make's  no  part  of  our 

*  Euclid,  according  to  chronological  history,  lived  three  hundred  years  before  Christ, 
and  about  one  hundred  before  Archimedes  ;  he  was  of  the  city  of  Alexandria,  in  Egypt. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  79 

belief  of  the  matters  contained  in  the  book.  But  it  is  quite  other- 
wise with  respect  to  the  books  ascribed  to  Moses,  to  Joshua,  to 
Samuel,  &c.  those  are  books  of  testimony,  and  they  testify  of 
things  naturally  incredible  ;  and  therefore  the  whole  of  ojur  be- 
lief, as  to  the  authenticity  of  those  books,  rests,  in  the  first  place, 
upon  the  certainty  that  they  were  written  by  Moses,  Joshua,  and 
Samuel  ;  secondly,  upon  the  credit  we  give  to  their  testimony. 
We  may  believe  the  first,  that  is,  we  may  believe  the  certainty 
of  the  authorship,  and  yet  not  the  testimony  ;  in  the  same  man- 
ner that  we  may  believe  that  a  certain  person  gave  evidence 
upon  a  case,  and  yet  not  believe  the  evidence  that  he  gave. 
But  if  it  should  be  found,  that  the  books  ascribed  to  Moses,  Josh- 
ua, and  Samuel,  were  not  written  by  Moses,  Joshua,  and  Sam- 
uel, every  part  of  the  authority  and  authenticity  of  those  books 
is  gone  at  once  ;  for  there  can  be  no  such  thing  as  forged 
or  invented  testimony  ;  neither  can  there  be  anonymous  tes- 
timony, more  especially  as  to  things  naturally  incredible  ; 
such  as  that  of  talking  with  God  face  to  face,  or  that  of  the  sun 
and  moon  standing  still  at  the  command  of  a  man.  The  greatest 
part  of  the  other  ancient  books  are  works  of  genius  ;  of  which 
kind  are  those  ascribed  to  Homer,  to  Plato,  to  Aristotle,  to  De- 
mosthenes, to  Cicero,  &c.  Here  again  the  author  is  not  an  es- 
sential in  the  credit  we  give  to  any  of  those  works  ;  for,  as  works 
of  genius,  they  would  have  the  same  merit  they  have  now,  were 
they  anonymous.  Nobody  believes  the  Trojan  story,  as  related 
by  Homer,  to  be  true — for  it  is  the  poet  only  that  is  admired  ; 
and  the  merit  of  the  poet  will  remain,  though  the  story  be  fabu- 
lous. But  if  we  disbelieve  the  matters  related  by  the  Bible  au- 
thors, (Moses  for  instance)  as  we  disbelieve  the  things  related 
by  Homer,  there  remains  nothing  of  Moses  in  our  estimation, 
but  an  impostor.  As  to  the  ancient  historians  from  Herodotus 
to  Tacitus,  we  credit  them  as  far  as  they  relate  things  probable 
and  credible,  and  no  further  ;  for  if  we  do,  we  must  believe  the 
two  miracles  which  Tacitus  relates  were  performed  by  Vespa- 
sian, that  of  curing  a  lame  man,  and  a  blind  man,  in  just  the 
same  manner  as  the  same  things  are  told  of  Jesus  Christ  by  his 
historians.  We  must  also  believe  the  miracle  cited  by  Josephus, 
that  of  the  sea  of  Pamphilia  opening  to  let  Alexander  and  his 
army  pass,  as  is  related  of  the  Red  Sea  in  Exodus.  These  mir- 
acles are  quite  as  well  authenticated  as  the  Bible  miracles,  and 
yet  we  do  not  believe  them  ;  consequently  the  degree  of  evi- 
dence necessary  to  establish  our  belief  of  things  naturally  in- 
credible, whether  in  the  Bible  or  elsewhere,  is  far  greater  than 
that  which  obtains  our  belief  to  natural  and  probable  things  ; 
and  therefore  the  advocates  for  the  Bible  have  no  claim  to  our 
belief  of  the  Bible,  because  that  we  believe  things  stated  in  oth- 
er ancient  writings  ;  since  we  believe  the  things  stated  in  these 
writings  no  further  than  they  are  probable  and  credible,  or  be- 


80  T«E    AGE    OF    REASON. 

cause  they  are  self-evident,  like  Euclid  ;  or  admire  them  be- 
cause they  are  elegant,  like  Homer  ;  or  approve  them  because 
they  are  sedate,  like  Plato  ;  or  judicious,  like  Aristotle. 

Having  premised  these  things,  I  proceed  to  examine  the  au- 
thenticity of  the  Bible,  and  I  begin  with  what  are  called  the  five 
books  of  Moses,  Genesis,  Exodus,  Leviticus,  Numbers,  and  Deu- 
teronomy. My  intention  is  to  show  that  those  books  are  spuri- 
ous, and  that  Moses  is  not  the  author  of  them  ;  and  still  further, 
that  they  were  not  written  in  the  time  of  Moses,  nor  till  several 
hundred  years  afterwards  ;  that  they  are  no  other  than  an  at- 
tempted history  of  the  life  of  Moses,  and  of  the  times  in  which  he 
is  said  to  have  lived,  and  also  of  the  times  prior  thereto,  written 
by  some  very  ignorant  and  stupid  pretenders  to  authorship,  sev- 
eral hundred  years  after  the  death  of  Moses,  as  men  now  write 
histories  of  things  that  happened,  or  are  supposed  to  have  hap- 
pened, several  hundred  or  several  thousand  years  ago. 

The  evidence  that  I  shall  produce  in  this  case  is  from  the 
books  themselves  !  and  I  will  confine  myself  to  this  evidence 
only. — Were  'I  to  refer  for  proof  to  any  of  the  ancient  authors, 
whom  the  advocates  of  the  Bible  call  profane  authors,  they 
would  controvert  that  authority,  as  I  controvert  theirs  ;  i  will 
therefore  meet  them  on  their  own  ground,  and  oppose  them  with 
their  own  weapon,  the  Bible. 

In  the  first  place,  there  is  no  affirmative  evidence  that  Moses 
is  the  author  of  those  books  ;  and  that  he  is  the  author,  is  alto- 
gether an  unfounded  opinion,  got  abroad  nobody  knows  how. 
The  style  and  manner  in  which  those  books  are  written,  give  no 
room  to  believe,  or  even  to  suppose,  they  were  written  by  Moses  , 
for  it  is  altogether  the  style  and  manner  of  another  person  speak- 
ing of  Moses.  In  Exodus,  Leviticus  and  Numbers,  (for  every 
thing  in  Genesis  is  prior  to  the  time  of  Moses,  and  not  the  least 
allusion  is  made  to  him  therein)  the  whole,  I  say,  of  these  books 
is  in  the  third  person  ;  it  is  always,  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses,  or 
Moses  said  unto  ike  Lord  ;  or  Moses  said  unto  the  people,  or  the 
people  said  unto  Moses  ;  and  this  is  the  style  and  manner  that  his- 
torians use,  in  speaking  of  the  person  whose  lives  and  actions 
they  are  writing.  It  may  be  said  that  a  man  may  speak  of  him- 
self in  the  third  person  ;  and  therefore  it  may  be  supposed  that 
Moses  did  ;  but  supposition  proves  nothing  ;  and  if  the  advocates 
for  the  belief  that  Moses  wrote  those  books  himself,  have  nothing 
better  to  advance  than  supposition,  they  may  as  well  be  silent. 
'  But  granting  the  grammatical  right,  that  Moses  might  speak  of 
himself  in  the  third  person,  because  any  man  might  speak  of  him- 
self in  that  manner,  it  cannot  be  admitted  as  a  fact  in  those  books, 
that  it  is  Moses  who  speaks,  without  rendering  Moses  truly  ridicu- 
lous and  absurd: — for  example,  Numb.  chap.  xii.  ver.  3.  "  JVbio  the 
man  Moses  was  very  meek,  above  all  the  men  which  were  on  the  face 
of  the  earth."  If  Moses  said  this  of  himself,  instead  of  being  the 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  81 

meekest  of  men,  ne  was  one  of  the  most  vain  and  arrogant  of 
coxcombs  ;  and  the  advocates  for  those  books  may  now  take 
which  side  they  please,  for  both  sides  are  against  them  ;  if  Moses 
was  not  the  author,  the  books  are  without  authority  ;  and  if  he 
was  the  author,  the  author  was  without  credit,  because  to  boast 
of  meekness,  is  the  reverse  of  meekness,  and  is  a  lie  in  sentiment. 

In  Deuteronomy,  the  style  and  manner  of  writing  marks  more 
evidently  than  in  the  former  books,  that  Moses  is  not  the  writer. 
The  manner  here  used  is  dramatical  ;  the  writer  opens  the  sub- 
ject by  a  short  introductory  discourse,  and  then  introduces  Mo- 
ses in  the  act  of  speaking,  and  when  he  has  made  Moses  finish 
his  harangue,  he  (the  writer)  resumes  his  own  part,  and  speaks 
till  he  brings  Moses  forward  again,  and  at  last  closes  the  scene 
with  an  account  of  the  death,  funeral,  and  character  of  Moses. 

This  interchange  of  speakers  occur  four  times  in  this  book  ; 
from  the  first  verse  of  the  first  chapter,  to  .the  end  of  the  fifth 
verse,  it  is  the  writer  who  speaks  ;  he  then  introduces  Moses  as 
in  the  act  of  making  his  harangue,  and  this  continues  to  the  end 
of  tlue  40th  verse  of  the  fourth  chapter  ;  here  the  writer  drops 
Moses,  and  speaks  historically  of  what  was  done  in  consequence 
of  what  Moses,  when  living,  is  supposed  to  have  said,  and  which 
the  writer  has  dramatically  rehearsed. 

The  writer  opens  the  subject  again  in  the  first  verse  of  the  fifth 
chapter,  though  it  is  only  by  saying,  that  Moses  called  the  peo- 
ple of  Israel  together  ;  he  then  introduces  Moses  as  before,  and 
continues  him,  as  in  the  act  of  speaking,  to  the  end  of  the  26th 
chapter.  He  does  the  same  thing  at  the  beginning  of  the  27th 
chapter  ;  and  continues  Moses,  as  in  the  act  of  speaking,  to  the 
end  of  the  28th  chapter.  At  the  29th  chapter  the  writer  speaks 
again  through  the  whole  of  the  first  verse,  and  the  first  line  of  the 
second  verse,  where  he  introduces  Moses  for  the  last  time,  and 
continues  him,  as  in  the  act  of  speaking,  to  the  end  of  the  33d 
chapter. 

The  writer  having  now  finished  the  rehearsal  on  the  part  of 
Moses,  comes  forward,  and  speaks  through  the  whole  of  the  last 
chapter  ;  he  begins  by  telling  the  reader,  that  Moses  went  up  to 
the  top  of  Pisgah  ;  that  he  saw  from  thence  the  land  which  (the 
writer  says)  had  been  promised  to  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob  ; 
that  he,  Moses,  died  there,  in  the  land  of  Moab,  but  that  no 
man  knoweth  of  his  sepulchre  unto  this  day,  that  is,  unto  the 
time  in  which  the  writer  lived,  who  wrote  the  book  of  Deuterono- 
my. The  writer  then  tells  us,  that  Moses  was  110  years  of  age 
when  he  died — that  his  eye  was  not  dim,  nor  his  natural  force 
abated  ;  and  he  concludes  by  saying,  that  there  arose  not  a  pro- 
phet since  in  Israel  like  unto  Moses,  whom,  says  this  anonymous 
writer,  the  Lord  knew  face  to  face. 

Having  thus  shown,  as  far  as  grammatical  evidence  applies, 
that  Mosos  was  not  the  writer  of  those  books,  I  will,  after  mak- 


82  THE    AGE    OF    REASON.- 

ing  a  few  observations  on  the  inconsistencies  of  the  writer  of  the 
book  of  Deuteronomy,  proceed  to  show,  from  the  historical  and 
chronological  evidence  contained  in  those  books,  that  Moseys  was 
not,  because  he  could  not  be,  the  writer  of  them  ;  and  consequent- 
ly, that  there  is  no  authority  for  believing,  that  the  inhuman  and 
horrid  butcheries  of  men,  women,  and  children,  told  in  those  books, 
were  done,  as  those  books  say  they  were,  at  the  command  of 
God.  It  is  a  duty  incumbent  on  every  true  Deist,,  that  he  vindi- 
cate the  moral  justice  of  God  against  the  calumnies  of  the  Bible. 

The  writer  of  the  book  of  Deuteronomy,  whoever  he  was,  (for 
it  is  an  anonymous  work)  is  obscure,  and  also  in  contradiction  with 
himself,  in  the  account  he  has  given  of  Moses. 

After  telling  that  Moses  went  to  the  top  of  Pisgah  (and  it  does 
not  appear  from  any  account  that  he  ever  came  down  again)  he 
tells  us,  that  Moses  died  there  in  the  land  of  Moab,  and  that  he 
buried  him  in  a  valley  in  the  land  of  Moab  ;  but  as  there  is  no  an- 
tecedent to  the  pronoun  he,  there  is  no  knowing  who  he  was  that 
did  bury  him.  If  the  writer  meant  that  he  (God)  buried  him,  how 
should  he  (the  writer)  know  it  ?  or  why  should  we  (the  readers) 
believe  him  ?  since  we  know  not  who  the  writer  was  that  tells 
us  so,  for  certainly  Moses  could  not  himself  tell  where  he  was 
buried. 

The  writer  also  tells  us,  that  no  mah  knoweth  where  the  sepul- 
chre of  Moses  is  unto  this  day,  meaning  the  time  in  which  this  wri- 
ter lived ;  how  then  should  he  know  that  Moses  was  buried  in  a 
valley  in  the  land  of  Moab  ?  for  as  the  writer  lived  long  after  the 
time  of  Moses,  as  is  evident  from  his  using  the  expression  of  unto 
this  day,  meaning  a  great  length  of  time  after  the  death  of  Moses, 
he  certainly  was  not  at  his  funeral ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  it  is 
impossible  that  Moses  himself  could  say,  that  no  man  knoweth  where 
the  sepulchre  is  unto  this  day.  To  make  Moses  the  speaker,  would 
be  an  improvement  on  the  play  of  a  child  that  hides  himself,  and 
cries  nobody  canjind  me  ;  nobody  can  find  Moses. 

This  writer  has  no  where  told  us  how  he  came  by  the  speeches 
which  he  has  put  into  the  mouth  of  Moses  to  speak,  and  therefore 
we  have  a  right  to  conclude,  that  he  either  composed  them  him- 
self, or  wrote  them  from  oral  tradition.  One  or  other  of  these  is 
the  more  probable,  since  he  has  given,  in  the  fifth  chapter,  a  ta- 
ble of  commandments,  in  which  that  called  the  fourth  command- 
ment is  different  from  the  fourth  commandment  in  the  twentieth 
chapter  of  Exodus.  In  that  of  Exodus,  the  reason  given  for  keep- 
ing the  seventh  day  is,  "because  (says  the  commandment)  God 
made  the  heavens  and  the  earth  in  six  days,  and  rested  on  the 
seventh  ;"  but  in  that  of  Deuteronomy,  the  reason  given  is,  that 
it  was  the  day  on  which  the  children  of  Israel  came  out  of  Egypt, 
and  therefore ,  says  this  commandment,  the  Lord  thy  God  command- 
ed thee  to  keep  the  sabbath-day.  This  makes  no  mention  of  the  cre- 
ation, nor  that  of  the  coming  out  of  Egypt.  There  are  also  many 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  83 

things  given  as  laws  of  Moses  in  this  book,  that  are  -not  to  be 
found  in  any  of  the  other  books  ;  among  which  is  that  inhuman 
and  brutal  law,  chap.  xxi.  ver.  18,  19,  20,  21,  which  authorizes 
parents,  the  father  and  the  mother,  to  bring  their  own  children 
to  have  them  stoned  to  death,  for  wliat  it  is  pleased  to  call  stub- 
bornness. But  priests  have  always  been  fond  of  preaching  up 
Deuteronomy,  for  Deuteronomy  preaches  up  tythes  ;  and  it  is 
from  this  book,  chap.  xxv.  ver.  4,  tliey  have  taken  the  phrase,  and 
applied  it  to  ty thing,  that  thou  shall  not  muzzle  the  ox  when  he  tread- 
etli  out  the  corn ;  and  that  this  might  not  escape  observation,  they 
have  noted  it  in  the  table  of  contents  at  the  head  of  the  chapter, 
though  it  is  only  a  single  verse  of  less  than  two  lines.  O  priests  ! 
priests  !  ye  are  willing  to  be  compared  to  an  ox,  for  the  sake  of 
tythes.  Though  it  is  impossible  tor  us  to  know  identically  who 
the  writer  of  Deuteronomy  was,  it  is  not  difficult  to  discover  him 
professionally,  that  he  was  some  Jewish  priest,  who  lived,  as  I 
shall  show  in  the  course  of  this  work,  at  least  three  hundred  and 
fifty  years  after  the  time  of  Moses. 

I  come  now  to  speak  of  the  historical  and  chronological  evi- 
dence. The  chronology  that  I  shall  use  is  the  Bible  chronology  ; 
for  I  mean  not  to  go  out  oT  the  Bible  for  evidence  of  any  thing, 
but  to  make  the  Bible  itself  prove  historically  and  chronologically, 
that  Moses  is  not  the  author  of  the  books  ascribed  to  him.  It  is 
therefore  proper  that  I  inform  the  reader,  (such  an  one  at  least 
as  may  not  have  an  opportunity  jof  knowing  it,)  that  in  the  larger 
Bibles,  and  also  in  some  smaller  ones,  there  is  a  series  of  chro- 
nology printed  in  the  margin  of  every  page,  for  the  purpose  of 
showing  how  long  the  historical  matters  stated  in  each  page  hap- 
pened, or  are  supposed  to  have  happened,  before  Christ,  and  con- 
sequently the  distance  of  time  between  one  historical  circumstance 
and  another. 

I  begin  with  the  book  of  Genesis.  In  the  14th  chapter  of  Gen- 
esis, the  writer  gives  an  account  of  Lot  being  taken  prisoner  in  a 
battle  between  the  four  kings  against  five,  and  carried  off;  and 
that  when  the  account  of  Lot  being  taken,  came  to  Abraham,  he 
armed  all  his  household,  and  marched  to  rescue  Lot  from  the  cap- 
tors ;  and  that  he  pursued  them  unto  Dan,  (ver.  14,) 

To  show  in  what  manner  this  expression  of  pursuing  them  unto 
Dan  applies  to  the  case  in  question,  I  will  refer  to  two  circum- 
stances, the  one  in  America,  the  other  in  France.  The  city  now 
called  New-York,  in  America,  was  originally  New  Amsterdam  ; 
and  the  town  in  France,  lately  called  Havre  Marat,  was  before 
called  Havre  de  Grace,  New  Amsterdam  was  changed  to  New- 
York  in  the  year  1664  ;  Havre  de  Grace  to  Havre  Marat  in  the 
year  1793.  Should,  therefore,  any  writing  be  found,  though  with- 
out date,  in  which  the  name  of  New- York  should  be  mentioned, 
it  would  be  certahi  evidence  that  such  writing  could  not  have  been 
written  before,  and  must  have  been  written  after  New  Amsterdam 


84  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

was  changed  to  New- York,  and  consequently  not  till  after  the 
year  1664,  or  at  least  during  the  course  of  that  year.  And,  in 
like  manner,  any  dateless  writing,  with  the  name  of  Havre  Marat, 
would  be  certain  evidence  that  such  a  writing  must  have  been 
written  after  Havre  de  Grace  became  Havre  Marat,  and  conse- 
quently not  till  after  the  }»ear  1793,  or  at  least  during  the  course 
of  that  year. 

I  now  come  to  the  application  of  those  cases,  and  to  show  that 
there  was  no  such  place  as  Dan,  till  many  years  after  the  death  of 
Moses  ;  and  consequently  that  Moses  could  not  be  the  writer  of 
the  book  of  Genesis,  where  this  account  of  pursuing  them  unto 
Dan  is  given. 

The  place  that  is  called  Dan  in  the  Bible  was  originally  a  town 
of  the  Gentiles,  called  Laish  ;  and  when  the  tribe  of  Dan  seized 
upon  this  town,  they  changed  its  name  to  Dan,  in  commemoration 
of  Dan,  who  was  the  father  of  that  tribe,  and  the  great  grandson  of 
Abraham. 

To  establish  this  in  proof,  it  is  necessary  to  refer  from  Genesis 
to  the  18th  chapter  of  the  book  called  the  book  of  Judges.  It  is 
there  said  (ver.  27)  that  they  (the  Danites)  come  unto  Laish  to  a 
people  that  were  quiet  and  secure,  and  tliey  smote  them  with  the  edge  of 
the  sword  (the  Bible  is  filled  with  murder)  and  burned  the  city  with 
fire  ;  and  they  built  a  city,  (ver.  28)  and^dwelt  therein,  and  they 
called  the  name  of  the  city  Dan,  after  the  name  of  Dan,  their  father, 
howbeit  the  name  of  the  city  was  Laish  at  the  first. 

This  account  of  the  Danites  taking  possession  of  Laish  and 
changing  it  to  Dan,  is  placed  in  the  book  of  Judges  immediately 
after  the  death  of  Sampson.  The  death  of  Sampson  is  said  to 
have  happened  1120  years  before  Christ,  and  that  of  Moses  1451 
before  Christ ;  and  therefore,  according  to  the  historical  arrange- 
ment, the  place  was  not  called  Dan  till  331  years  after  the  death 
of  Moses. 

There  is  a  striking  confusion  between  the  historical  and  the 
chronological  arrangement  in  the  Book  of  Judges.  The  five  last 
chapters,'  as  they  stand  in  the  book,  17,  18,  19,  20,  21,  are  put 
chronologically  before  all  the  preceding  chapters';  they  are  made 
to  be  28  years  before  the  16th  chapter,  266  before  the  15th,  245 
before  the  13th,  195  before  the  9th,  90  before  the  4th,  and  15  years 
before  the  1st  chapter.  This  shows  the  uncertain  and  fabulous 
state  of  the  Bible.  According  to  the  chronological  arrangement, 
the  taking  of  Laish,  and  giving  it  the  name  of  Dan,  is  made  to  be 
20  years  after  the  death  of  Joshua,  who  was  the  successor  of  Mo- 
ses ;  and  by  the  historical  order  as  it  stands  in  the  book,  it  is  made 
to  be  306  years  after  the  death  of  Joshua,  and  331  after  that  of 
Moses  ;  but  they  both  exclude  Moses  from  being  the  writer  of 
Genesis,  because,  according  to  either  of  the  statements,  no  such 
place  as  Dan  existed  in  the  time  of  Moses  ;  and  therefore  the  writ-, 
er  of  Genesis  must  have  been  some  person  who  lived  after  the 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON  85 

town  of  Laish  had  the  name  of  Dan  ;  and  who  that  person  was, 
nobody  knows  ;  and  consequently  the  book  of  Genesis  is  anony- 
mous and  without  authority. 

I  proceed  now  to  state  another  point  of  historical  and  chrono- 
logical evidence,  and  to  show  therefrom,  as  in  the  preceding  case, 
that  Moses  is  not  the  author  of  the  book  of  Genesis. 

In  the  36th  chapter  of  Genesis  there  is  given  a  genealogy  of 
the  sons  and  descendants  of  Esau,  who  are  called  Edomites,  and 
also  a  list  by  name,  of  the  kings  of  Edom  ;  in  enumerating  of 
which.,  it  is  said,  ver.  31,  "And  these  are  the  kings  that  reigned  in 
Edomy  before  there  reigned  any  king  over  the  children  of  Israel." 

Now,  were  any  dateless  writings  to  be  found,  in  which,  speak- 
ing of  any  past  events,  the  writer  should  say,  these  things  happen- 
ed before  there  was  any  Congress  in  America,  or  before  there 
was  any  Convention  in  France,  it  would  be  evidence  that  such 
writing  could  not  have  been  written  before,  and  could  only  be 
written  after  there  was  a  Congress  in  America,  or  a  Convention  in 
France,  as  the  case  might  be  ;  and  consequently  that  it  could  not 
be  written  by  any  person  who  died  before  there  was  a  Congress 
in  the  one  country,  or  a  Convention  in  the  other. 

Nothing  is  more  frequent  as  well  in  history  as  in  conversation 
than  to  refer  to  a  fact  in  the  room  of  a  date  :  it  is  most  natural  so 
to  do,  because  a  fact  fixes  itself  in  the  memory  better  than  a  date  ; 
secondly,  because  the  fact  includes  the  date,  and  serves  to  excite 
two  ideas  at  once  ;  and  this  manner  of  speaking  by  circumstances 
implies  as  positively  that  the  fact  alluded  to  is  pa-st,  as  if  it  was  so 
expressed.  When  a  person,  speaking  upon  any  matter,  says,  it 
was  before  I  was  married,  or  before  my  son  was  born,  or  before 
I  went  to  America,  or  before  I  went  to  France,  it  is  absolutely  un- 
derstood, and  intended  to  be  understood,  that  he  has  been  marri- 
ed, that  he  has  had  a  son,  that  he  has  been  in  America,  or  been 
in  France.  Language  does  not  admit  of  using  this  mode  of  ex- 
pression in  any  other  sense  ;  and  whenever  such  an  expression  is 
found  any  where,  it  can  only  be  understood  in  the  sense  in  which 
only  it  could  have  been  used. 

The  passage,  therefore,  that  I  have  quoted — "that  these  are  the 
kings  that  reigned  in  Edom,  before  there  reigned  any  king  over  the 
children  of  Israel,"  could  only  have  been  written  after  the  first 
king  began  to  reign  over  them  ;  and  consequently  that  the  book  of 
Genesis,  so  far  from  having  been  written  by  Moses,  could  not  have 
been  written  till  the  time  of  Saul  at  least.  This  is  the  positive 
sense  of  the  passage  ;  but  the  expression,  any  king,  implies  more 
kings  than  one,  at  least  it  implies  two,  and  this  will  carry  it  to  the 
time  of  David  ;  and,  if  taken  in  a  general  sense,  it  carries  itself 
through  all  the  times  of  the  Jewish  monarchy. 

Had  we  met  with  this  verse  in  any  part  of  the  bible  that  profess- 
ed  to  have  been  written  after  kings  began  to  reign  in  Israel,  it 
would  have  been  impossible  not  to  have  seen  the  application  of  *v 


86  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

It  happens  then  that  this  is  the  case  ;  the  two  boorfs  of  Chronicles, 
which  gave  a  history  of  all  the  kings  of  Israel,  are  professedly,  as 
well  as  in  fact,  written  after  the  Jewish  monarchy  began  ;  and  this 
verse  that  I  have  quoted,  and  all  the  remaining  verses  of  the  36th 
chapter  of  Genesis,  are,  word  for  word,  in  the  first  chapter  of 
Chronicles,  beginning  at  the  43d  verse. 

It  was  with  consistency  that  the  writer  of  the  Chronicles  could 
say,  as  he  has  said,  1st  Chron.  chap.  i.  ver.  43,  These  are  the  kings 
that  reigned  in  Edom,  before  there  reigned  any  fang  over  the  children 
of  Israel ,  because  he  was  going  to  give,  and  has  given,  a  list  ofthe 
kings  that  had  reigned  in  Israel ;  but  as  it  is  impossible  that  the 
same  expression  could  have  been  used  before  that  period,  it  is  as 
certain  as  any  thing  can  be  proved  from  historical  language,  that 
this  part  of  Genesis  is  taken  from  Chronicles,  and  that  Genesis 
is  not  so  old  as  Chronicles,  and  probably  not  so  old  as  the  book 
of  Homer,  or  as  JEsop's  Fables,  admitting  Homer  to  have  been, 
as  the  tables  of  Chronology  state,  contemporary  with  David  or 
Solomon,  and  JEsop  to  have  lived  about  the  end  of  the  Jewish 
monarchy. 

Take  away  from  Genesis  the  belief  that  Moses  was  the  author, 
on  which  only  the  strange  belief  that  it  is  the  word  of  God  has 
stood,  and  there  remains  nothing  of  Genesis  but  an  anonymous 
book  of  stones,  fables,  and  traditionary  or  invented  absurdities,  or 
of  downright  lies.  The  story  of  Eve  and  the  serpent,  and  of 
?Voah  and  his  ark,  drops  to  a  level  with  the  Arabian  Tales,  with- 
out the  merit  of  being  entertaining  ;  and  the  account  of  men  living 
to  eight  and  nine  hundred  years  becomes  as  fabulous  as  the  im- 
mortality of  the  giants  of  the  Mythology. 

Besides,  the  character  of  Moses,  as  stated  in  the  Bible,  is  the 
most  horrid  that  can  be  imagined.  If  those  accounts  be  true,  he 
was  the  wretch  that  first  began  and  carried  on  wars  on  the  score, 
or  on  the  pretence  of  religion  ;  and  under  that  mask,  or  that  infatu- 
ation, committed  the  most  unexampled  atrocities  that  are  to  be 
found  in  the  history  of  any  nation,  of  which  I  will  state  only  one 
instance. 

When  the  Jewish  army  returned  from  one  of  their  plundering 
and  murdering  excursions,  the  account  goes  on  as  follows,  Num- 
bers, chap.  xxxi.  ver.  13. 

"And  Moses,  and  Eleazer  the  priest,  and  all  the  princes  of  the 
congregation,  went  forth  to  meet  them  without  the  camp  ;  and 
Moses  was  wrath  with  the  officers  of  the  host,  with  the  captains 
over  thousands,  and  captains  over  hundreds,  which  came  from  the 
battle  ;  and  Moses  said  unto  them,  Have  ye  saved  all  the  women 
alive?  behold,  these  caused  the  children  of  Israel,  through  the 
council  of  Balaam,  to  commit  trespass  against  the  Lord  in  the 
matter  of  Peor,  and  there  was  a  plague  among  the  congregation 
of  the  Lord.  Now,  therefore,  kill  every  male  among  the  little  ones, 
and  kill  every  woman  that  hath  known  a  man  by  lying  with  him ;  but 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  87 

all  the  women  children  that  have  not  faiown  a  man  by  lying  with  him, 
keep  alive  for  yourselves. 

Among  the  detestable  villains  that  in  any  period  of  the  world 
have  disgraced  the  name  of  man,  it  is  impossible  to  find  a  greater 
than  Moses,  if  this  account  be  true.  Here  is  an  order  to  butcher 
the  boys,  to  massacre  the  mothers,  and  debauch  the  daughters. 

Let  any  mother  put  herself  in  the  situation  of  those  mothers  ; 
one  child  murdered,  another  destined  to  violation,  and  herself  in 
the  hands  of  an  executioner  :  let  any  daughter  put  herself  in  the 
situation  of  those  daughters,  destined  as  a  prey  to  the  murderers 
of  a  mother  and  a  brother,  and  what  will  be  their  feelings  ?  It  is 
in  vain  that  we  attempt  to  impose  upon  nature,  for  nature  will  have 
her  course,  and  the  religion  that  tortures  all  her  social  ties  is  a 
false  religion. 

After  this  detestable  order,  follows  an  account  of  the  plunder 
taken,  and  the  manner  of  dividing  it ;  and  here  it  is  that  the  pro- 
faneness  of  priestly  hypocrisy  increases  the  catalogue  of  crimes. 
Verse  37,  "And  the  Lord's  tribute  of  the  sheep  was  six  hundred 
and  three  score  and  fifteen  ;  and  the  beeves  was  thirty  and  six 
thousand,  of  which  the  Lord's  tribute  was  three  score  and  twelve  ; 
and  the  asses  were  thirty  thousand,  of  which  the  Lord's  tribute 
was  three  score  and  one  ;  and  the  persons  were  thirty  thousand, 
of  which  the  Lord's  tribute  was  thirty  and  two."  In  short,  the  mat- 
ters contained  in  this  chapter,  as  well  as  in  many  other  parts  of 
the  Bible,  are  too  horrid  for  humanity  to  read,  or  for  decency  to 
hear  ;  for  it  appears,  from  the  35th  verse  of  this  chapter,  that  the 
number  of  women-children  consigned  to  debauchery  by  the  order 
of  Moses  was  thirty-two  thousand. 

People  in  general  know  not  what  wickedness  there  is  in  this 
pretended  word  of  God.  Brought  up  in  habits  of  superstition, 
they  take  it  for  granted  that  the  Bible  is  true,  and  that  it  is  good  ; 
they  permit  themselves  not  to  doubt  of  it,  and  they  carry  the  ideas 
they  form  of  the  benevolence  of  the  Almighty  to  the  book  which 
they  have  been  taught  to  believe  was  written  by  his  authority, 
(rood  heavens  !  it  is  quite  another  thing  ;  it  is  a  book,  of  lies,  wick- 
edness, and  blasphemy  ;  for  what  can  be  greater  blasphemy,  than 
to  ascribe  the  wickedness  of  man  to  the  orders  of  the  Almighty  ? 

But  to  return  to  my  subject,  that  of  showing  that  Moses  is  not 
the  author  of  the  books  ascribed  to  him,  and  that  the  Bible  is  spu- 
rious. The  two  instances  I  have  already  given  would  be  suffi- 
cient, without  any  additional  evidence,  to  invalidate  the  authentici- 
ty of  any  book  that  pretended  to  be  four  or  five  hundred  years  more 
ancient  than  the  matters  it  speaks  of  or  refers  to  as  facts  ;  for  in 
the  case  of  pursuing  them  unto  Dan,  and  of  the  kings  that  reigned 
over  the  children  of  Israel,  not  even  the  flimsey  pretence  of  prophe- 
sy can  be  pleaded.  The  expressions  are  in  the  preter  tense,  and 
it  would  be  downright  ideotism  to  say  that  a'man 'could  prophesy 
in  the  preter  tense.  , 


88  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

But  there  are  many  other  passages  scattered  throughout  those 
books  that  unite  in  the  same  point  of  evidence.  It  is  said  in  Exo- 
dus, (another  of  the  books  ascribed  to  Moses)  chap.  xvi.  ver.  34, 
"And  the  children  of  Israel  did  eat  manna  until  they  came  to  a  land 
inhabited  ;  they  did  eat  manna  until  they  came  unto  the  borders  of  the 
land  of  Canaan. 

Whether  the  children  of  Israel  ate  manna  or  not,  or  what  man- 
na was,  or  whether  it  was  any  thing  more  than  a  kind  of  fungus 
or  small  mushroom,  or  other  vegetable  substance  common  to  that 
part  of  the  country,  makes  nothing  to  my  argument ;  all  that  I 
mean  to  show  is,  that  it  is  not  Moses  that  could  write  this  account, 
because  the  account  extends  itself  beyond  the  life  and  time  of 
Moses.  Moses,  according  to  the  Bible,  (but  it  is  such  a  book  of 
lies  and  contradictions  there  is  no  knowing  which  part  to  believe, 
or  whether  any)  dies  in  the  wilderness,  and  never  came  upon  the 
borders  of  the  land  of  Canaan  ;  and  consequently  it  could  not  be 
he  that  said  what  the  children  of  Israel  did,  or  what  they  ate  when 
they  came  there.  This  account  of  eating  manna,  which  they  tell 
us  was  written  by  Moses,  extends  itself  to  the  time  of  Joshua,  the 
successor  of  Moses,  as  appears  by  the  account  given  in  the  book 
of  Joshua,  after  the  children  of  Israel  had  passed  the  river  Jor- 
dan, and  came  unto  the  borders  of  the  land  of  Canaan.  Joshua, 
chap.  v.  ver.  12.  "And  the  manna  ceased  on  the  morrow,  after  they 
had  eaten  of  the  old  corn  of  the  land  ;  neither  had  the  children  of  Is- 
rael manna  any  more,  but  they-  did  eat  of  the  fruit  of  the  land  of  Cana- 
an that  year" 

.  But  a  more  remarkable  instance  than  this  occurs  in  Deuterono- 
my ;  which,  while  it  shows  that  Moses  could  not  be  the  writer  of 
that  book,  shows  also  the  fabulous  notions  that  prevailed  at  that 
time  about  giants.  In  the  third  chapter  of  Deuteronomy,  among 
the  conquests  said  to  be  made  by  Moses,  is  an  account  of  the  tak- 
ing of  Og,  king  of  Bashan,  ver.  11.  "For  only  Og,  king  of  Ba- 
shan,  remained  of  the  race  of  giants  ;  behold,  his  bedstead  was  a 
bedstead  of  iron  ;  is  it  not  in  Rabbath  of  the  children  of  Ammon? 
nine  cubits  was  the  length  thereof,  and  four  cubits'  the  breadth  of 
it,  after  the  cubit  of  a  man."  A  cubit  is  1  foot  9  888-lOOOths 
inches  ;  the  length,  therefore,  of  the  bed  was  16  feet  4  inches,  and 
the  breadth  7  feet  4  inches  ;  thus  much  for  this  giant's  bed.  Now 
for  the  historical  part,  which  though  the  evidence  is  not  so  direct 
and  positive,  as  in  the  former  cases,  it  is  nevertheless  very  pre- 
sumable and  corroborating  evidence,  and  is  better  than  the  best  ev- 
idence on  the  contrary  side. 

The  writer,  by  way  of  proving  the  existence  of  this  giant,  refers 
to  his  bed,  as  an  ancient  relic,  and  says,  is  it  not  in  Rabbath  (or 
Rabbah)  of  the  children  of  Ammon  ?  meaning  that  it  is  ;  for  such 
is  frequently  the  Bible  method  of  affirming  a  thing.  But  it  could 
not  be  Moses  that  said  this,  because  Moses  could  know  nothing 
about  Rabbah,  nor  of  what  was  in  it.  Rabbah  was  not  a  city  be- 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  89 

longing  to  this  giant  king,  nor  was  it  one  of  the  cities  that  Moses 
took.  The  knowledge,  therefore,  that  this  bed  was  at  Kabbah, 
and  of  the  particulars  of  its  dimensions,  must  be  referred  to  the 
time  when  Rabbah  was  taken,  and  this  was  not  till  four  hundred 
years  after  the  death  of  Moses  ;  for  which,  see  2  Sam.  chap.  xji. 
ver.  26.  "And  Joab  (David's  general)  fought  against  Rabbah  of 
the  children  ofJlmmon^  and  took  the  royal  city." 

As  I  am  not  undertaking  to  point  out  all  the  contradictions  in 
time,  place  and  circumstance,  that  abound  in  the  books  ascribed  to 
Moses,  and  which  prove  to  a  demonstration  that  those  books  could 
not  be  written  by  Moses,  nor  in  the  time  of  Moses  ;  I  proceed  to 
the  book  of  Joshua,  and  to  show  that  Joshua  is  »nt  the  author  of 
that  book,  and  that  it  is  anonymous  and  without  authority.  The 
evidence  I  shall  produce  &  contained  in  the  book  itself;  I  will  not 
go  out  of  the  Bible  for  proof  against  the  supposed  authenticity  of 
the  Bible.  False  testimony  is  always  good  against  itself. 

Joshua,  according  to  the  first  chapter  of  Joshua,  was  the  imme- 
diate successor  of  Moses  ;  he  was  moreover  a  military  man,  which 
Moses  was  not,  and  he  continued  as  chief  of  the  people  of  Israel 
25  years  ;  that  is,  from  the  time  that  Moses  died,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  Bible  chronology,  was  14ol  years  before  Christ,  until 
1426  years  before  Christ,  when,  according  to  the  same  chronology, 
Joshua  died.  If,  therefore,  we  find  in  this  book,  said  to  have  been 
written  by  Joshua,  reference  to  facts  .done  after  the  death  of  Josh- 
ua, it  is  evidence  that  Joshua  could. not  be  the  author  ;  and  also 
that  the  book  could  not  have  been  written  till  after  the  time  of  the 
latest  fact  which  it  records.  As  to  the  character  of  the  book,  it 
is  horrid  ;  it  is  a  military  history  of  rapine  and  murder,  as  savage 
and  brutal  as  those  recorded  of  his  predecessor  in  villany  and  hy- 
pocrisy, Moses ;  and  the  blasphemy  consists,  as  in  the  former 
books,  in  ascribing  those*  deeds  to  the  orders  of  the  Almighty. 

In  the  first  place,  the  book  of  Joshua,  as  is  the  case  in  the  pre- 
ceding books,  is  written  in  the  third  person  ;  it  is  the  historian  of 
Joshua  that  speaks,  for  it  would  have  been  absurd  anc1  vain-gloii- 
ous  that  Joshua  should  say  of  himself,  as  is  said  of  him  in  the  last 
verse  of  the  sixth  chapter,  that  "  his  fame  was  noised  throughout 
all  the  country."  I  now  come  more  immediately  to  the  proof. 

In  the  24th  chapter,  ver.  31,  it  is  said,  "  that  Israel  served  the 
Lord  all  the  days  of  Joshua,  and  all  the  days  of  the  elders  that  over- 
lived Joshua."  Now,  in  the  name  of  common  sense,  can  it  be 
Joshua  that  relates  what  people  had  done  after  he  was  dead?  This 
account  must  not  only  have  been  written  by  some  historian  that 
lived  after  Joshua,  but  that  lived  also  after  the  elders  that  out- 
lived Joshua. 

There  are  several  passages  of  a  general  meaning  with  respect 
to  time,  scattered  throughout  the  book  of  Joshua,  that  carries  the 
time  in  which  the  book  was  written  to  a  distance  from  the  time  of 
Joshua,  but  without  marking  bv  exclusion  any  particular  time,  as 


90  THE    AGE   OF    REASON. 

in  the  passage  above  quoted.  In  that  passage,  the  time  that  in- 
tervened between  the  death  of  Joshua  and  the  death  of  the  elders 
is  excluded  descriptively  and  absolutely,  and  the  evidence  sub- 
stantiates that  the  book  could  not  have  been  written  till  after  the 
death  of  the  last. 

But  though  the  passages  to  which  I  allude,  and  which  I  am  go- 
ing to  quote,  do  not  designate  any  particular  time  by  exclusion,, 
they  imply  a  time  far  more  distant  from  the  days  of  Joshua,  than  is 
contained  between  the  death  of  Joshua  and  the  death  of  the  elders. 
Such  is  the  passage,  chap.  x.  ver.  14  ;  where,  after  giving  an  ac- 
count that  the  sun  stood  still  upon  Gibeon,  and  the  moon  in  the 
valley  of  Ajalon,  at  the  command  of  Joshua  (a  tale  only  fit  to  a- 
muse  children)  the  passage  says,  "And  there  was  no  day  like  that, 
before  it,  nor  after  it,  that  the  Lord  barkened  to  the  voice  of  a  man." 

This  tale  of  the  sun  standing  still  upon  Mount  Gibeon,  and  the 
moon  in  the  valley  of  Ajalon,  is  one  of  those  fables  that  detects  itself. 
Such  a  circumstance  could  not  have  happened  without  being  known 
all  over  the  world.  One  half  would  have  wondered  why  the  sun 
did  not  rise,  and  the  other  why  it  did  not  set ;  and  the  tradition  of 
it  would  be  universal,  whereas  there  is  not  a  nation  in  the  world 
that  knows  any  thing  about  it.  But  why  must  the  moon  stand 
still  ?  What  occasion  could  there  be  for  moon-light  in  the  day-time, 
and  that  too  while  the  sun  shined  ?  As  a  poetical  figure,  the  whole 
is  well  enough  ;  it  is  a  kin  to  that  in  the  song  of  Deborah  and  Ba- 
ruk,  The  stars  in  their  courses  fought  against  Siscra  ;  but  it  is  in- 
ferior to  the  figurative  declaration  of  Mahomet,  to  the  persons  who 
came  to  expostulate  with  him  on  his  going  on.  Wert  f/iow,  said  he, 
to  come  to  me  with  the  sun  in  thy  right  hand  and  the  moon  in  thy  left, 
it  should  not  alter  my  career.  For  Joshua  to  have  exceeded  Ma- 
homet, he  should  have  put  the  sun  and  moon  one  in  each  pocket, 
and  carried  them  as  Guy  Faux  carried  his  dark  lanthorn,  and  tak- 
en them  out  to  shine  as  he  might  happen  to  want  them. 

The  sublime  and  the  ridiculous  are  often  so  nearly  related  that 
it  is  difficult  to  class  them  separately.  One  step  above  the  sub- 
lime makes  the  ridiculous,  and  one  step  above  the  ridiculous  makes 
the  sublime  again  :  the  account,  however,  abstracted  from  the 
poetical  fancy,  shows  the  ignorance  of  Joshua,  for  he  should  have 
commanded  the  earth  to  have  stood  still. 

The  time  implied  by  the  expression  after  it,  that  is,  after  that 
day,  being  put  in  comparison  with*all  the  time  that  passed  before 
it,  must,  in  order  to  give  aay  expressive  signification  to  the  pas- 
sage, mean  a  great  length  of  time  : — for  example,  it  would  have 
been  ridiculous  to  have  said  so  the  next  day,  or  the  next  week,  or 
the  next  month,  or  the  next  year  ;  to  give,  therefore,  meaning  to 
the  passage,  comparative  with  the  wonder  it  relates,  and  the  prior 
time  it  alludes  to,  it  must  mean  centuries  of  years  ;  less,  however, 
than  one  would  be  trifling,  and  less  than  two  would  be  barely  ad- 
missible. 


THE    AGE    OF   REASON.  91 

A  distant,  but  general  time,  is  also  expressed  in  the  8th  chap- 
ter ;  where,  after  giving  an  account  of  the  taking  of  the  city  of 
Ai,  it  is  said,  ver.  28th,  "  And  Joshua  burned  Ai,  and  made  it  an 
heap  for  ever,  a  desolation  unto  this  day ;"  and  again,  ver.  29th, 
where,  speaking  of  the  king  of  Ai,  whom  Joshua  had  hanged,  and 
buried  at  the  entering  of  the  gate,  it  is  said,  "  And  he  raised  there- 
on a  great  heap  of  stones,  which  remaineth  unto  this  day,"  that 
is,  unto  the  day  or  time  in  which  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Joshua 
lived.  And  again,  in  the  10th  chapter,  where,  after  speaking  of 
the  five  kings  whom  Joshua  had  hanged  on  five  trees,  and  then 
thrown  in  a  cave,  it  is  said,  "And  he  laid  great  stones  on  the  cave's 
mouth,  which  remain  unto  this  very  day." 

In  enumerating  the  several  exploits  of  Joshua,  and  of  the  tribes, 
and  of  the  places  which  they  conquered  or  attempted,  it  is  said,  c 
xv.  ver.  63,  "  As  for  the  Jebusites,  the  inhabitants  of  Jerusalem, 
the  children  of  Judah  could  not  drive  them  out ;  but  the  Jebusites 
dwell  with  the  children  of  Judah  at  Jerusalem  unto  this  day."  The 
question  upon  this  passage  is,  at  what  time  did  the  Jebusites  and 
the  children  of  Judah  dwell  together  at  Jerusalem  ?  As  this  matter 
occurs  again  in  the  first  chapter  of  Judges,  I  shall  reserve  my  ob- 
servations till  I  come  to  that  part. 

Having  thus  shown  from  the  book  of  Joshua  itself,  without  any 
auxiliary  evidence  whatever,  that  Joshua  is  not  the  author  of  that 
book,  and  that  it  is  anonymous,  and  consequently  without  author- 
ity. I  proceed,  as  before  mentioned,  to  the  book  of  Judges. 

The  book  of  Judges  is  anonymous  on  the  face  of  it ;  and  there- 
fore even  the  pretence  is  wanting  to  call  it  the  word  of  God  ;  it  has 
not  so  much  as  a  nominal  voucher  ;  it  is  altogether  fatherless. 

This  book  begins  with  the  same  expression  as  the  book  of  Josh- 
ua. That  of  Joshua  begins,  chap.  i.  ver.  1 ,  JVbto  after  the  death  of 
Moses,  fyc.  and  this  of  Judges  begins,  JYbw>  after  the  death  of  Josh- 
ua, &c.  This,  and  the  similarity  of  style  between  the  two  books, 
indicate  that  they  are  the  work  of  the  same  author  ;  but  who  he 
was,  is  altogether  unknown  :  the  only  point  that  the  book  proves 
is,  that  the  author  lived  long  after  the  time  of  Joshua  ;  for  though 
it  begins  as  if  it  followed  immediately  after  his  death,  the  second 
chapter  is  an  epitome  or  abstract  of  the  whole  book,  which,  accord- 
ing to  the  Bible  chronology,  extends  its  history  through  a  space 
of  306  years  ;  that  is,  from  the  death  of  Joshua,  1426  years  before 
Christy  to  the  death  of  Sampson,  1120  years  before  Christ,  and 
only  25  years  before  Saul  went  to  seek  his  father's  asses,  and  ivas 
made  Icing.  But  there  is  good  reason  to  believe,  that  it  was  not 
written  till  the  time  of  David  at  least,  and  that  the  book  of  Joshua 
was  not  written  before  the  same  time. 

In  the  first  chapter  of  Judges,  the  writer,  after  announcing  the 
death  of  Joshua,  proceeds  to  tell  what  happened  between  the  chil- 
dren of  Judah  and  the  native  inhabitants  of  the  land  of  Canaan. 
In  this  statement,  the  writer,  having  abruptly  mentioned  Jerusalem 


92  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

in  the  7th  verse,  says  immediately  after,  in  the  8th  verse,  by  way 
of  explanation,  "Now  the .  children  of  Judah  had  fought  against 
Jerusalem,  and  taken  it ;"  consequently,  this  book  could  not  have 
been  written  before  Jerusalem  had  been  taken.  The  reader  will 
recollect  the  quotation  I  have  just  before  made  from  the  15th  chap- 
ter of  Joshua,  ver.  63,  where  it  is  said,  that  the  Jebusites  dwell  with 
the  children  of  Judah  at  Jerusalem  at  this  day}  meaning  the  time 
when  the  book  of  Joshua  was  written. 

The  evidence  I  have  already  produced,  to  prove  that  the  books 
I  have  hitherto  treated  of  were  not  written  by  the  persons  to  whom 
they  are  ascribed,  nor  till  many  years  after  their  death,  if  such 
persons  ever  lived,  is  already  so  abundant,  that  I  can  afford  to  ad- 
mit this  passage  with  less  weight  than  I  am  entitled  to  draw  from 
it. — For  the  case  is,  that  so  far  as  the  Bible  can  be  credited  as  an 
history,  the  city  of  Jerusalem  was  not  taken  till  the  time  of  David; 
and  consequently,  that  the  books  of  Joshua,  and  of  Judges,  were 
not  written  till  after  the  commencement  of  the  reign  of  David, 
which  was  370  years  after  the  death  of  Joshua. 

The  name  of  the  city,  that  was  afterwards  called  Jerusalem, 
was  originally  Jebus  or  Jebusi,  and  was  the  capital  of  the  Jebu- 
sites. The  account  of  David's  taking  the  city  is  given  in  2  Sam- 
uel, chap.  v.  ver.  4,  &c.  ;  also  in  1  Chron.  chap.  xiv.  ver.  4,  &c. 
There  is  no  mention  i:i  any  part  of  the  Bible  that  it  was  ever  taken 
before,  nor  any  account  that  favours  such  an  opinion.  It  is  not 
said,  either  in  Samuel  or  in  Chronicles,  that  they  utterly  destroyed 
men,  womeny  and  children  ;  that  they  left  not  a  soul  to  breathe,  as  is  said 
of  their  other  conquests  ;  and  the  silence  here  observed  implies 
that  it  was  taken  by  capitulation,  and  that  the  Jebusites,  the  na- 
tive inhabitants,  continued  to  live  in  the  place  after  it  was  taken. 
The  account,  therefore,  given  in  Joshua,  that  the  Jebusites  dwell 
ivith  the  children  of  Judah  at  Jerusalem  at  this  day,  corresponds  to 
no  other  time  than  after  the  taking  the  city  by  David. 

Having  now  shown  that  every  book  in  the  Bible,  from  Genesis 
to  Judges,  is  without  authenticity,  I  come  to  the  book  of  Ruth,  an 
idle,  bungling  story,  foolishly  told,  nobody  knows  by  whom,  about 
a  strolling  country  girl  creeping  slily  to  bed  to  her  cousin  Boaz. 
Pretty  stuff  indeed  to  be  called  the  word  of  God  !  It  is,  however, 
one  of  the  best  books  in  the  Bible,  for  it  is  free  from  murder  and 
rapine. 

I  come  next  to  the  two  books  of  Samuel,  and  to  show  that  those 
books  were  not  written  by  Samuel,  nor  till  a  great  length  of  time 
after  the  death  of  Samuel  ;  and  that  they  are,  like  all  the  former 
books,  anonymous,  and  without  authority. 

To  be  convinced  that  these  books  have  been  written  much  la- 
ter than  the  time  of  Samuel,  and  consequently  not  by  him,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  read  the  account  which  the  writer  gives  of 
Saul  going  to  seek  his  father's  asses,  and  of  his  interview  with 
Samuel,  of  whom  Saul  went  to  inquire  about  those  lost  asses,,  as 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  93 

foolish  people  now-a-days  go  to  a  conjurer  to  inquire  after  lost 
things. 

The  writer,  in  relating  this  story  of  Saul,  Samuel,  and  the  ass- 
es, does  not  tell  it  as  a  thing  that  had  just  then  happened,  but 
as  an  ancient  story  in  the  time  this  writer  lived  ;  for  he  tells  it  in 
the  language  or  terms  used  at  the  time  that  Samuel  lived,  which 
obliges  the  writer  to  explain  the  story  in  the  terms  or  language 
used  in  the  time  the  writer  lived. 

Samuel,  in  the  account  given  of  him,  in  the  first  of  those  books, 
chap.  ix.  is  called  the  seer  ;  and  it  is  by  this  term  that  Saul  in- 
quires after  him,  ver.  11,  "  And  as  they  (Saul  and  his  servant) 
went  up  the  hill  to  the  city,  they  found  young  maidens  going  out 
to  draw  water  ;  and  they  said  unto  them,  Is  the  seer  here  ?"  Saul 
then  went  according  to  the  direction  of  these  maidens,  and  met 
Samuel  without  knowing  him,  and  said  unto  him,  ver.  18,  "  Tell 
me,  I  pray  thee,  where  the  seer's  house  is  V  and  Samuel  answered 
Saul,  and  said,  I  am  the  seer." 

As  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Samuel  relates  these  questions 
and  answers,  in  the  language  or  manner  of  speaking  used  in  the 
time  they  are  said  to  have  been  spoken  ;  and  as  that  manner  of 
speaking  was  out  of  use  when  this  author  wrote,  he  found  it  ne- 
cessary, in  order  to  make  the  story  understood,  to  explain  the 
terms  in  which  these  questions  and  answers  are  spoken  ;  and  he 
does  this  in  the  9th  verse,  where  he  says,  "  before-time,  in  Israel, 
when  a  man  went  to  inquire  of  God,  thus  he  spake,  Come,  let  us 
go  to  the  seer  ;  for  he  that  is  now  called  a  prophet,  was  before- 
time  called  a  seer."  This  proves,  as  I  have  before  said,  that 
this  story  of  Saul,  Samuel,  and  the  asses,  was  an  ancient  story 
at  the  time  the  book  of  Samuel  was  written,  and  consequently 
that  Samuel  did  not  write  it,  and  that  that  book  is  without  au- 
thenticity. 

But  if  we  go  further  into  those  books,  the  evidence  is  still 
more  positive  that  Samuel  is  not  the  writer  of  them  ;  for  they  re- 
late things  that  did  not  happen  till  several  years  after  the  death 
of  Samuel.  Samuel  died  before  Saul ;  for  the  1st  Samuel,  chap. 
xxviii.  tells,  that  Saul  and  the  witch  of  Endor  conjured  Samuel 
up  after  he  was  dead  ;  yet  the  history  of  the  matters  contained 
in  those  books  is  extended  through  the  remaining  part  of  Saul's 
life,  and  to  the  latter  end  of  the  life  of  David,  who  succeeded 
Saul.  The  account  of  the  death  and  burial  of  Samuel  (a  thing 
which  he  could  not  write  himself)  is  related  in  the  25th  chapter 
of  the  first  book  of  Samuel  ;  and  the  chronology  affixed  to  this 
chapter  makes  this  to  be  1060  years  before  Christ  ;  yet  the  his- 
tory of  this  Jirst  book  is  brought  down  to  1056  years  before 
Christ ;  that  is,  to  the  death  of  Saul,  which  was  not  till  four 
years  after  the  death  of  Samuel. 

The  second  book  of  Samuel  begins  with  an  account  of  things 
that  did  not  happen  till  four  years  after  Samuel  was  dead  ;  for  it 


94  THE    AGE    OP    REASON. 

begins  with  the  reign  of  David,  who  succeeded  Saul,  and  it  goes 
on  to  the  end  of  David's  reign,  which  was  forty-three  years  af- 
ter the  death  of  Samuel ;  and  therefore  the  books  are  in  them- 
selves positive  evidence  that  they  were  not  written  by  Samuel. 

I  have  now  gone  through  all  the  books  in  the  first  part  of  the 
Bible,  to  which  the  names  of  persons  are  affixed,  as  being  the 
authors  of  those  books,  and  which  the  church,  styling  itself  the 
Christian  church,  have  imposed  upon  the  world  as  the  writings 
of  Moses,  Joshua,  and  Samuel ;  and  I  have  detected  and  proved 
the  falsehood  of  this  imposition.  And  now,  ye  priests  of  every 
description,  who  have  preached  and  written  against  the  former 
part  of  the  *flge  of  Reason,  what  have  ye  to  say  ?  "  Will  ye,  with 
all  this  mass  of  evidence  against  you,  and  staring  you  in  the  face, 
still  have  the  assurance  to  march  into  your  pulpits,  and  continue 
to  impose  these  books  on  your  congregations,  as  the  works  of 
inspired  penmen,  and  the  word  of  God,  when  it  is  as  evident  as 
demonstration  can  make  truth  appear,  that  the  persons  who,  ye 
say,  are  the  authors,  are  not  the  authors,  and  that  ye  know  not 
who  the  authors  are.  What  shadow  of  pretence  have  ye  now  to 
produce,  for  continuing  the  blasphemous  fraud  ?  What  have  ye 
still  to  offer  against  the  pure  and  moral  religion  of  Deism,  in  sup- 
port of  your  system  of  falsehood,  idolatry  and  pretended  revela- 
tion ?  Had  the  cruel  and  murderous  orders,  with  which  the  Bi- 
ble is  filled,  and  the  numberless  torturing  executions  of  men, 
women,  and  children,  in  consequence  of  those  orders,  been  as- 
cribed to  some  friend,  whose  memory  you  revered,  you  would 
have  glowed  with  satisfaction  at  detecting  the  falsehood  of  the 
charge,  and  gloried  in  defending  his  injured  fame.  It  is  because 
ye  are  sunk  in  the  cruelty  of  superstition,  or  feel  no  interest  in 
the  honour  of  your  Creator,  that  ye  listen  to  the  horrid  tales  of 
the  Bible,  or  hear  them  with  callous  indifference.  The  evidence 
I  have  produced,  and  shall  still  produce  in  the  course  of  this 
work,  to  prove  that  the  Bible  is  without  authority,  will,  whilst  it 
wounds  the  stubbornness  of  a  priest,  relieve  and  tranquillize  the 
minds  of  millions  ;  it  will  free  them  from  all  those  hard  thoughts 
of  the  Almighty  which  priest-craft  and  the  Bible  had  infused  into 
their  minds,  and  which  stood  in  everlasting  opposition  to  all  their 
ideas  of  his  moral  justice  and  benevolence. 

I  come  now  to  the  two  books  of  Kings,  and  the  two  books  of 
Chronicles.  Those  books  are  altogether  historical,  and  are  chief- 
ly confined  to  the  lives  and  actions  of  the  Jewish  kings,  who  in 
general  were  a  parcel  of  rascals  ;  but  these  are  matters  with  . 
which  we  have  no  more  concern,  than  we  have  with  the  Roman 
emperors,  or  Homer's  account  of  the  Trojan  war.  Besides 
which,  as  those  works  are  anonymous,  and  as  we  know  nothing 
of  the  writer,  or  of  his  character,  it  is  impossible  for  us  to  know 
what  degree  of  credit  to  give  to  the  matters  related  therein.  Like 
ail  other  ancipnt  histories,  they  appear  to  be  a  jumble  of  fable 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  95 

and  of  fact,  and  of  probable  and  of  improbable  things  ;  but 
which,  distance  of  time  and  place,  and  change  of  circumstances 
in  the  world,  have  rendered  obsolete  and  uninteresting. 

The  chief  use  I  shall  make  of  those  books,  will  be  that  of  com- 
paring them  with  each  other,  and  with  other  parts  of  the  Bible, 
to  show  the  confusion,  contradiction,  and  cruelty,  in  this  pre- 
tended word  of  God. 

The  first  book  of  Kings  begins  with  the  reign  of  Solomon, 
which,  according  to  the  Bible  Chronology,  was  1015  years  be- 
fore Christ  ;  and  the  second  book  ends  588  years  before  Christ, 
being  a  little  after  the  reign  of  Zedekiah,  whom  Nebuchadnez- 
zar, after  taking  Jerusalem,  and  conquering  the  Jews,  carried 
captive  to  Babylon.  The  two  books  include  a  space  of  427 
years. 

The  two  books  of  Chronicles  are  an  history  of  the  same  time, 
and  in  general  of  the  same  persons,  by  another  author  ;  for  it 
would  be  absurd  to  suppose  that  the  same  author  wrote  the  his- 
tory twice  over.  The  first  book  of  Chronicles,  (after  giving  the 
genealogy  from  Adam  to  Saul,  which  takes  up  the  first  nine 
chapters)  begins  with  the  reign  of  David  ;  and  the  last  book 
ends  as  in  the  last  book  of  Kings,  soon  after  the  reign  of  Zede- 
kiah, about  588  years  before  Christ.  The  two  last  verses  of  the 
last  chapter  bring  the  history  52  years  more  forward,  that  is,  to 
536.  But  these  verses  do  not  belong  to  the  book,  as  I  shall 
show  when  I  come  to  speak  of  the  book  of  Ezra. 

The  two  books  of  Kings,  besides  the  history  of  Saul,  David, 
and  Solomon,  who  reigned  over  all  Israel,  contain  an  abstract 
of  the  lives  of  seventeen  kings  and  one  queen,  who  are  styled 
kings  of  Judah,  and  of  nineteen,  who  are  styted  kings  of  Israel ; 
for  the  Jewish  nation,  immediately  on  the  death  of  Solomon,  split 
into  two  parties,  who  chose  separate  kings,  and  who  carried 
on  most  rancorous  wars  against  each  other. 

Those  two  books  are  little  more  than  a  history  of  assassina- 
tions, treachery,  and  wars.  The  cruelties  that  the  Jews  had 
accustomed  themselves  to  practise  on  the  Canaanites,  whose 
country  they  had  savagely  invaded  under  a  pretended  gift  from 
God,  they  afterwards  practised  as  furiously  on  each  other. 
Scarcely  half  their  kings  died  a  natural  death,  and  in  some  in- 
stances whole  families  were  destroyed  to  secure  possession  to 
the  successor,  who,  after  a  few  years,  and  sometimes  only  a  few 
months,  or  less,  shared  the  same  fate.  In  the  tenth  chapter  of 
the  second  book  of  Kings,  an  account  is  given  of  two  baskets 
full  of  children's  heads,  70  in  number,  being  exposed  at  the  en- 
trance of  the  city  ;  they  were  the  children  of  Ahab,  and  were 
murdered  by  the  orders  of  Jehu,  whom  Elisha,  the  pretended 
man  of  God,  had  anointed  to  be  king  over  Israel,  on  purpose  to 
commit  this  bloody  deed,  and  assassinate  his  predecessor.  And 
in  the  account  of  the  reign  of  Manaham,  one  of  the  kings  of 


96  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

Israel  who  had  murdered  Shallum,  who  had  reigned  Dut  one 
month,  it  is  said,  2  Kings,  chap.  xv.  ver.  16,  that  Manaham  smote 
the  city  of  Tiphsah,  because  they  opened  not  the  city  to  him, 
and  all  the  women  that  were  therein  tfiat  were  with  child  they  ripped 
up. 

Could  we  permit  ourselves  to  suppose  that  the  Almighty  would 
distinguish  any  nation  of  people  by  the  name  of  his  chosen  people, 
we  moist  suppose  that  people  to  have  been  an  example  to  all  the 
rest  of  the  world  of  the  purest  piety  and  humanity,  and  not  such 
a  nation  of  ruffians  and  cut-throats  as  the  ancient  Jews  were  ; 
a  people,  who,  corrupted  by,  and  copying  after,  such  monsters 
and  impostors  as  Moses  and  Aaron,  Joshua,  Samuel,  and  David, 
had  distinguished  themselves  above  all  others,  on  the.  face  of.the 
known  earth,  for  barbarity  and  wickedness.  If  we  will  not  stub- 
bornly shut  our  eyes,  and  steel  our  hearts,  it  is  impossible  not  to 
see,  in  spite  of  all  that  long-established  superstition  imposes  upon 
the  mind,  that  the  flattering  appellation  of  his  chosen  people  is  no 
other  than  a  lie,  which  the  priests  and  leaders  of  the  Jews  had 
invented,  to  cover  the  baseness  of  their  own  characters  ;  and 
which  Christian  priests,  sometimes  as  corrupt,  and  often  as 
cruel,  have  professed  to  believe.  • 

The  two  books  of  Chronicles  are  a  repetition  of  the  same 
crimes  ;  but  the  history  is  broken  in  several  places,  by  the  au- 
thor leaving  out  the  reign  of  some  of  their  kings  ;  and  in  this,  as 
well  as  in  that  of  Kings,  there  is  such  a  frequent  transition  from 
kings  of  Judah  to  kings  of  Israel,  and  from  kings  of  Israel  to  kings 
of  Judah,  that  the  narrative  is  obscure  in  the  reading.  In  the 
same  book  the  history  sometimes  contradicts  itself ;  for  example, 
in  the  second  book  of  Kings,  chap.  i.  ver.  8,  we  are  told,  but  in 
rather  ambiguous  terms,  that  after  the  death  of  Ahaziah,  king  of 
Israel,  Jehoram,  or  Joram  (who  was  of  the  house  of  Ahab)  reign- 
ed in  his  stead  in  the  second  year  of  Jehoram,  or  Joram,  son  of 
Jehoshaphat  king  of  Judah  ;  and  in  chap.  viii.  ver.  16,  of  the  same 
book,  it  is  said,  and  in  thefyth  year  of  Joram,  the  son  of  Ahab, 
king  of  Israel,  Jehoshaphat  being  then  king  of  Judah,  began  to 
reign  ;  that  is,  one  chapter  says  Joram  of  Judah  began  to  reign 
in  the  second  year  of  Joram  of  Israel ;  and  the  other  chapter  says, 
that  Joram  of  Israel  began  to  reign  in  the  fifth  year  of  Joram  of 
Judah. 

Several  of  the  most  extraordinary  matters  related  in  one  his- 
tory, as  having  happened  during  the  reign  of  such  and  such  of 
4heir  kings,  are  not  to  be  found  in  the  other,  in  relating  the  reign 
of  the  same  king  ;  for  example,  the  two  first  rival  kings,  after 
?the  death  of  Solomon,  were  Rehoboam  and  Jeroboam  ;  and  in 
1  Kings,  chap.  xii.  and  xiii.  an  account  is  given  of  Jeroboam 
making  an  offering  of  burnt  incense,  and  that  a  man,  who  is  there 
called  a  man  of  God,  cried  out  against  the  altar,  chap,  xiii,  ver. 
2,  "  0. altar  !  altar  !  thus  saith  the  Lord  ;  Behold,  a  child  shall 


THE    ASE    OF 'REASON.  97 

be  born  to  the  house  of  David,  Josiah  by  name,  and  upon  thee 
shall  he  offer  the  priests  of  the  high  places,  and  burn  incense 
upon  thee,  and  men's  bones  shall  be  burnt  upon  thee." — Ver.  3, 
"  And  it  came  to  pass,  when  king  Jeroboam  heard  the  saying  of 
the  man  of  God,  which  had  cried  against  the  altar  in  Bethel,  that 
he  put  forth  his  hand  from  the  altar,  saying,  Lay  hold  on  him  ; 
and  his  hand  which  he  put  out  against  him  dried  up,  so  that  lie 
could  not.  pull  it  in  again  to  him." 

One  would  think  that  such  an  extraordinary  case  as  this,  (which 
is  spoken  of  as  a  judgment)  happening  to  the  chief  of  one  of  the 
parties,  and  that  at  the  first  moment  of  the  separation  of  the  Is- 
raelites into  two  nations,  would,  if  it  had  been  true,  been  record- 
ed in  both  histories.  But  though  men  in  latter  times  have  be- 
lieved all  that  the  prophets  have' said  unto  them,  it  does  not  appear 
these  prophets  or  historians  believed  each  other,  they  knew  each 
other  too  well. 

A  long  account  also  is  given  in  Kings  about  Elijah.  It  runs 
through  several  chapters,  and  concludes  with  telling,  2  Kings, 
chap.  ii.  ver  11,  "  And  it  came  to  pass,  as  they  (Elijah  and  Eli- 
sha) still  went  on,  and  talked,  that  behold,  there  appeared  a  char- 
iot of  fire  and  hoi*scs  of  fire,  and  parted  them  both  assunder,  and 
Elijah  went  up  by  a  whirlwind  into  heaven"  Hum  !  this  the  au- 
thor of  Chronicles,  miraculous  as  the  story  is,  makes  no  mention 
of,  though  he  mentions  Elijah  by  name  ;  neither  does  he  say  any 
thing  of  the  story  related  in  the  second  chapter  of  the  same  book 
of  Kings,  of  a  parcel  of  children  calling  Hlisha  bald  head,  bald 
head  ;  and  that  this  man  of  God,  ver.  24,  turned  back,  and  look- 
ed upon  them,  artd  cursed  them  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  ;  and  there 
came  forth  two  she  bears  out  of  the  wood,  and  tore  forty  and  two 
children  of  them."  He  also  passes  over  in  silence  the  story  told,. 
2  Kings,  chap.  xiii.  that  when  they  were  burying  a  man  in  the 
sepulchre,  where  Elisha  had  been  buried,  it  happened  that  the 
dead  man,  as  they  were  letting  him  down,  (ver.  21,)  "touched 
the  bones  of  Elisha,  and  he  (the  dead  man)  revived,  and  stood  up- 
on his  feet."  The  story  does  not  tell  us  whether  they  buried  the 
man  notwithstanding  he  revived  and  stood  upon  his  feet,  or  drew 
him  up  again.  Upon  all  these  stories,  the  writer  of  Chronicles 
is  as  silent  as  any  writer  of  the  present  day,  who  did  not  choose 
to  be  accused  of  lying,  or  at  least  of  romancing,  would  be  about 
•stories  of  the  same  kind. 

But,  however  these  two  historians  may  differ  from  each  other, 
with  respect  to  the  tales  related  by  either,  they  are  silent  alike 
with  respect  to  those  men  styled  prophets,  whose  writings  fill  up 
the  latter  part  of  the  Bible.  Isaiah,  /who  lived  in  the  time  of 
Hezekiah,  is  mentioned  in  Kings,  and  again  in  Chronicles,  when 
these  historians  are  speaking  of  that  reign  ;  but  except  in. one  or 
two  instances  at  most,  and  those  very  slightly,  none  of  the  rest 
are  so  much  as  spoken  of,  or  even  their  existence  hinted  at ; 
9 


98 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 


though,  according  to  the  bible  chronology,  the}  lived  within  the 
time  those  histories  were  written  ;  some  of  them  long  before.  If 
those  prophets,  as  they  are  called,  were  men  of  such  importance 
in  their  day,  as  the  compilers  of  the  Bible,  and  priests,  and  com- 
mentators have  since  represented  them  to  be,  how  can  it  be  ac- 
counted for,  that  not  one  of  these  histories  should  say  any  thing 
about  them  ? 

The  history  in  the  books  of  Kings  and  Chronicles  is  brought 
forward,  as  I  have  already  said,  to  the  year  588  before  Christ ;  it 
will  therefore  be  proper  to  examine,  which  of  these  prophets  liv- 
ed before  that  period. 

Here  follows  a  table  of  all  the  prophets,  with  the  times  in  which 
they  lived  before  Christ,  according  to  the  Chronology  affixed  to 
the  first  chapter  of  each  of  the  books  of  the  prophets  :  and  also 
of  the  number  of  years  they  lived  before  the  books  of  Kings  and 
Chronicles  were  written. 

Table  of  the  Prophets,  with  the  time  in  which  they  lived  before  Christ) 
and  also  before  the  books  of  Kings  and  Chronicles  were  written. 


Names. 
Isaiah 
Jeremiah 


*f 

Year* 

Years  before 

before 

Kings  and 

Christ 

Chronicles. 

- 

760 

172 

•  - 

62£ 

41 

„. 

595 

7 

—  .            • 

607 

19 

- 

785 

97 

- 

800 

212 

- 

789 

199 

. 

789 

199 

• 

862 

274 

-     • 

750 

162 

„ 

713 

125 

M 

620 

38 

- 

630 

42 

after  the 

year  588 

Observations. 

mentioned, 
c  mentioned  only  in 
i  the  last  ch.  of  Chroi> 
not  mentioned, 
not  mentioned, 
not  mentioned, 
not  mentioned, 
not  mentioned, 
not  mentioned, 
see  the  note.* 
not  mentioned, 
not  mentioned, 
not  mentioned, 
not  mentioned. 


Ezekiel     - 

Daniel 

Hosea 

Joel 

Amos 

Obadiah    - 

Jonah        *• 

Micah 

Nahum     - 

Habakkuk 

Zephaniah 

Haggai 

Zachariah 

Malachi 

This  table  is  either  not  very  honourable  for  the  Bible  histori- 
ans, or  not  very  honourable  for  the  Bible  prophets  ;  and  I  leave 
to  priests  and  commentators,  who  are  very  learned  in  little  things, 
to  settle  the  point  of  etiquette  between  the  two  ;  and  to  assign  a 
reason,  why  the  authors  of  Kings  and  Chronicles  have  treated 
those  prophets,  whom  in  the  former  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  I 

*  In  2  Kings,  chap.  xiv.  ver.  25,  the  name  of  Jonah  is  mentioned  on  account  of  the 
restoration  of  a  tract  of  land  by  Jeroboam  ;  but  nothing  further  is  said  of  him,  nor  ia 
any  allusion  made  to  the  book  of  Jonah,  nor  to  his  expedition  to  Ninevah,  nor  to  hi* 
encounter  with  the  whale. 


T«E    AGE    OP    REASON,  99 

have  considered  as  poe\s,  with  as  much  degrading  silence  as  any 
historian  of  the  present  day  would  treat  Peter  Pindar. 

I  have  one  observation  more  to  make  on  the  book  of  Chroni- 
cles ;  after  which  I  shall  pass  on  to  review  the  remaining  books 
of  the  Bible. 

In  my  observations  on  the  book  of  Genesis,  I  have  quoted  a 
passage  from  the  36th  chapter,  ver.  31,  which  evidently  refers  to 
a  time,  after  that  kings  began  to  reign  over  the  children  of  Isra- 
el ;  and  I  have  shown  that  as  this  verse  is  verbatim  the  same  as 
in  Chronicles,  chap.  i.  ver.  43,  where  it  stands  consistently  with 
the  order  of  history,  which  in  Genesis  it  does  not,  that  the  verse 
in  Genesis,  and  a  great  part  of  tjie  36th  chapter,  have  been  taken 
from  Chronicles  ;  and  that  the  book  of  Genesis,  though  it  is  placed 
first  in  the  Bible,  and  ascribed  to  Moses,  has  been  manufactured 
by  some  unknown  person,  after  the  book  of  Chronicles  was  writ- 
ten, which  was  not  until  at  least  eight  hundred  and  sixty  years 
after  the  time  of  Moses. 

The  evidence  I  proceed  by  to  substantiate  this  is  regular,  and 
has  in  it  but  two  stages.  First,  as  I  have  already  stated,  that 
the  passage  in  Genesis  refers  itself  for  time  to  Chronicles  ;  sec- 
ondly, that  the  book  of  Chronicles,  to  which  this  passage  refers  it- 
self, was  not  begun  to  be  written  until  at  least  eight  hundred  and 
sixty  years  after  the  time  of  Moses.  To  prove  this,  we  have  on- 
ly to  look  into  the  thirteenth  verse  of  the  third  chapter  of  the  first 
book  of  Chronicles,  where  the  writer,  in  giving  the  genealogy  of 
the  descendants  of  David,  mentions  Zedekiah  ;  and  it  was  in  the 
time  of  Zedekiah,  that  Nebuchadnezzar  conquered  Jerusalem, 
588  years  before  Christ,  and  consequently  more  than  860  years 
after  Moses.  Those  who  have  superstitiously  boasted  of  the  an- 
tiquity of  the  Bible,  and  particularly  of  the  books  ascribed  to  Mo- 
ses, have  done  it  without  examination,  and  without  any  authority 
than  that  of  one  credulous  man  telling  it  to  another  ;  for,  so  far 
as  historical  and  chronological  evidence  applies,  the  very  first 
book  in  the  Bible  is  not  so  ancient  as  the  book  of  Homer,  by 
more  than  three  hundred  years,  and  is  about  the  same  age  with 
JEsop's  Fables. 

I  am  not  contending  for  the  morality  of  Homer  ;  on  the  contra- 
ry, I  think  it  a  book  of  false  glory,  tending  to  inspire  immoral 
and  mischievous  notions  of  honour  :  and  with  respect  to  jEsop, 
though  the  moral  is  in  general  just,  the  fable  is  often  cruel ;  and 
the  cruelty  of  the  fable  does  more  injury  to  the  heart,  especially 
in  a  child,  than  the  moral  does  good  to  the  judgment. 

Having  now  dismissed  Kings  and  Chronicles,  I  come  to  the 
next  in  course,  the  book  of  Ezra. 

As  one  proof,  among  others,  I  shall  produce,  to  show  the  disor- 
der in  which  this  pretended  word  of  God,  the  Bible,  has  been  put 
together,  and  the  uncertainty  of  who  the  authors  were,  we  have 
only  to  look  at  the  three  first  verses  in  Ezra,  and  the  two  last  ia 


100 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 


Chronicles  ;  for  by  what  kind  of  cutting  and  shuffling  has  it  been 
that  the  three  first  verses  in  Ezra  should- be  the  two  last  verses 
in  Chronicles,  or  that  the  two  last  verses  in  Chronicles  should  be 
the  three  first  in  Ezra  ?  Either  the  authors  did  not  know  their 
own  works,  or  the  compilers  did  not  know  the  authors. 


Two  last  verses  of  Chronicles. 
Ver.  22.  Now  in  the  first  year 
of  Cyrus,  king  of  Persia,  that 
the  word  of  the  Lord,  spoken  by 
the  mouth  of  Jeremiah,  might 
be  accomplished,  the  Lord  stir- 
red up  the  spirit  of  Cyrus,  king 
of  Persia,  that  he  made  a  proc- 
lamation throughout  all  his 
kingdom,  and  put  it  also  in  wri- 
ting, saying. 

23.  Thus  saith  Cyrus,  king  of 
Persia,  all  the  kingdoms  of  the 
earth  hath  the  Lord  God  of  hea- 
ven given  me ;  and  he  hath 
charged  me  to  build  him  an 
house  in  Jerusalem,  which  is  in 
Judah.  Who  is  there  among 
you  of  all  his  people  ?  the  Lord 
his  God  be  with  him,  and  let 
him  go  up. 


Three  first  verses  of  Ezra. 

Ver  1 .  Now  in  the  first  year 
of  Cyrus,  king  of  Persia,  that 
the  word  of  the  Lord,  by  the 
mouth  of  Jeremiah,  might  be 
fulfilled,  the  Lord  stirred  up  the 
spirit  of  Cyrus,  king  of  Persia, 
that  he  made  a  proclamation 
throughout  all  his  kingdom,  and 
put  it  also  into  writing,  saying, 

2.  Thus  saith  Cyrus,  king  of 
Persia,  The  Lord  God  of  hea- 
ven hath  given  me  all  the  king- 
doms of  the  earth  ;  and  he  hath 
charged   me   to  build   him  an 
house  at  Jerusalem,  which  is  in 
Judah. 

3.  Who  is  there  among  you 
of  all  his  people  ?  his   God  be 
with  him,  and  let  him  go  up,  to 
Jerusalem,  which  is  in  Jiidah,  and 
build  Ihe  house  of  the  Lord   God 
of  Israel  (he  is  the  God)  which 
is  in  Jerusalem. 


The  last  verse  in  Chronicles  is  broken  abruptly,  and  ends  in 
the  middle  of  a  phrase  with  the  word  up,  without  signifying  to 
what  place.  This  abrupt  break,  and  the  appearance  of  the  same 
verses  in  different  books,  show,  as  I  have  already  said,  the  dis- 
order and  ignorance  in  which  the  Bible  has  been  put  together, 
and  that  the  compilers  of  it  had  no  authority  for  what  they  were 
doing,  nor  we  any  authority  for  believing  what  they  have  done.* 

*  I  observed,  as  I  passed  along,  several  broken  and  senseless  passages  in  the  Bible, 
without  thinking  them  of  consequence  enough  to  be  introduced  in  the  body  of  the 
work  ;  such  as  that,  1  Samuel,  .chap.  xiii.  ver.  1,  where  it  is  said,  "Saul  reigned  one 
year  ;  and  when  he  had  reigned  two  years  over  Israel,  Saul  chose  him  three  thousand 
men,  &c."  The  first  part  of  the  verse,  that  Saul  reigned  one  year,  has  no  sense, 
since  it  does  not  tell  us  what  Saul  did,  nor  say  any  thing  of  what  happened  at  the  end 
of  that  one  year  ;  and  it  is,  besides,  mere  absurdity  to  say  he  reigned  one  year,  when 
Ihe  very  next  phrase  says  he  had  reigned  two ;  for  if  he  had  reigned  two,  it  was  im- 
possible not  to  have  reigned  one. 

Another  instance  occurs  fn  Joshua,  chap.  v.  where  the  writer  tells  us  a  story  of  an 
angel  (for  such  the  table  of  contents  at  the  head  of  the  chapter  calls  him,)  appearing 
unto  Joshua ;  and  the  story  ends  abruptly,  and  without  any  conclusion.  The  story  is 


THE   AGE    OP    REASON.  101 

The  only  thing  that  has  any  appearance  of  certainty  in  the  book 
of  Ezra,  is  the  time  in  which  it  was  written,  which  wa$  immedi- 
ately after  the  return  of  the  Jews  from  the  Babylonian  captivity, 
about  536  years  before  Christ.  Ezra  (who,  according  to  the  Jew- 
ish commentators,  is  the  same  person  as  is  called  Esdras  in  the 
Apocrypha)  was  one  of  the  persons  who  returned,  and  who,  it  is 
probable,  wrote  the  account  of  that  affair.  Nehemiah,  whose  book 
follows  next  to  Ezra,  was  another  of  the  returned  persons  ;  and 
who,  it  is  also  probable,  wrote  the  account  of  the  same  affair,  in 
the  book  that  bears  his  name.  But  those  accounts  are  nothing  to 
us,  nor  to  any  other  persons,  unless  it  be  to  the  Jews,  as  a  part  of 
the  history  of  their  nation  ;  and  there  is  just  as  much  of  the  word 
of  God  in  those  books  as  there  is  in  any  of  the  histories  of  France, 
or  Rapin's  History  qf  England,  or  the  history  of  any  other  coun- 
try. 

But  even  in  matters  of  historical  record,  neither  of  those  writers 
are  to  be  depended  upon.  In  the  second  chapter  of  Ezra,  the 
writer  gives  a  list  of  the  tribes  and  families,  and  of  the  precise  num- 
ber of  souls  of  each  that  returned  from  Babylon'to  Jerusalem  ;  and 
this  enrolment  of  the  persons  so  returned,  appears  to  have  been 
one  of  the  principal  objects  for  writing  the  book  ;  but  in  this  there 
is  an  error  that  destroys  the  intention  of  the  undertaking. 

The  writer  begins  his  enrolment  in  the  following  manner  : — 
chap.  ii.  ver.  3,  "The  children  of  Parosh,  two  thousand  one  hun- 
dred seventy  and  four."  Terse  4,  "The  children  of  Shephatiah, 
three  hundred  seventy  and  two."  And  in  this  manner  he  pro- 
ceeds through  all  the  families  ;  and  in  the  64th  verse,  he  makes  a 
total,  and  says,  the  whole  congregation  together  was/or/?/  and  lisa 
thousand  three  hundred  and  three  score. 

But  whoever  will  take  the  trouble  of  casting  up  the  several  par- 
ticulars, will  find  that  the  total  is  but  29,818  ;  so  that  the  error  is 

as  follows  : — Ver.  13,  "And  it  came  to  pass,  when  Joshua  was  by  Jericho,  dial  ho  lift- 
ed up  his  eyes  and  looked,  and  behold  there  stood  a  man  over  against  him  with  his 
sword  drawn  in  his  hand  ;  and  Joshua  went  unto  him,  atid  said  unto  him,  Art  tlum  for 
us,  or  for  our  adversaries  1"  Verse  14,  "And  he  said,  Nay  ;  but  as  die  captain  of  the 
hosts  of  the  Lord  am  I  now  come.  And  Joshua  fell  on  his  face  to  the  earth,  and  did 
worship,  and  said  unto  him,  What  sakh  my  Lord  unto  his  servant '!"  Verse  15,  "And 
the  captain  of  the  Lord's  host  said  unto  Joshua,  Loose  thy  shoe  from  off  thy  foot ;  for 
the  place  whereon  thou  standest  is  holy.  And  Joshua  did  so." — And  what  then  I  no- 
thing ;  for  here  the  story  ends,  and  the  chapter  tot). 

Either  this  story  is  broken  off  in  the  middle,  or  It  is  a  story  toU  by  some  Jewish  hu- 
mourist, in  ridicule  of  Joshua's  pretended  mission  from  Go*'  ;*«nd  the  compilers  of  the 
Biljlt;,  not  perceiving  the  design  of  the  story,  have  told  it  as  a  serious  matter.  As  a  rto- 
ry  of  humour  and  ridicule,  it  has  a  great  deal  of  point ;  for  it  pompously  introduces  an 
angel  in  the  figure  of  a  man,  with  a  drawn  sword  in  his  hand,  before  wltom  Joshua  falls 
on  his  face  to  the  earth,  and  worships,  (which  is  contrary  to  their  second  command- 
ment;) and  then,  this  most  important  embassy  from  heaven  ends,  in  telling  Joshua  to 
pull  off  his  shoe.  It  might  as  well  have  told  him  to  pull  up  his  breeches. 

It  is  certain,  however,  that  the  Jews  did  not  credit  every  tiling  their  leaders  tnld 
them,  as  appears  from  the  cavalier  manner  in  which  they  speak  of  Moses,  when  ii«' 
was  gone  into  the  mount.  "As  for  this  Mosee,  say  they,  we  wot  not  what  is  become  of 
him."     Exod.  chap,  xxxii.  ver.  1. 
9* 


102 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 


12,542.*  What  certainty  then  can  there  be  in  the  Bible  for  any 
thing  ? 

Nehemiah,  in  like  manner,  gives  a  list  of  the  returned  families, 
and  of  the  number  of  each  family.  He  begins  as  in  Ezra,  by  say- 
ing, chap.  vii.  ver.  8,  "The  children  of  Parosh,  two  thousand 
three  hundred  and  seventy-two  ;"  and  so  on  through  all  the  fam- 
ilies. The  list  differs  in  several  of  the  particulars  from  that  of 
Ezra.  In  the  66th  verse,  Nehemiah  makes  a  total,  and  says,  as 
Ezra  had  said,  "The  whole  congregation  together  was  forty  and 
two  thousand  three  hundred  and  three  score."  But  the  particu- 
lars of  this  list  make  a  total  but  of  31 ,089,  so  that  the  error  here  is 
1 1 ,27 1 .  These  writers  may  do  well  enough  for  Bible-makers,  but 
not  for  any  thing  where  truth  and  exactness  is  necessary.  The 
next  book  in  course  is  the  book  of  Esther.  If  Madam  Esther 
thought  it  any  honour  to  offer  herself  as  a  kept  mistress  to  Ahas- 
uerus,  or  as  a  rival  to  Queen  Vashty,  who  had  refused  to  come  to 
a  drunken  king,  in  the  midst  of  a  drunken  company,  to  be  made  a 
show  of  (for  the  account  says,  they  had  been  drinking  seven  days, 
and  were  merry,)  let  Esther  and  Mordicai  look  to  that,  it  is  no 
business  of  ours  ;  at  least,  it  is  none  of  mine  ;  besides  which  the 
story  has  a  great  deal  the  appearance  of  being  fabulous,  and  is 
also  anonymous.  I  pass  on  to  the  book  of  Job. 

The  book  of  Job  differs  in  character  from  all  the  books  we  have 
hitherto  passed  over.  Treachery  and  murder  make  no  part  of  this 
book  ;  it  is  the  meditations  of  n  mind  strongly  impressed  with  the 
vicissitudes  of  human  life,  and  by  turns  sinking  under,  and  strug- 
gling against  the  pressure.  It  is  a  highly  wrought  composition,  be- 
tween willing  submission  and  involuntary  discontent ;  and  shows 
man,  as  he  sometimes  is,  more  disposed  to  be  resigned  than  he  is 
capable  of  being.  Patience  has  but  a  small  share  in  the  charac- 
ter of  the  person  of  whom  the  book  treats  ;  on  the  contrary,  his 
grief  is  often  impetuous  ;  but  he  still  endeavours  to  keep  a  guard 
upon  it,  and  seems  determined,  in  the  midst  of  accummulating  ills, 
to  impose  upon  himself  the  hard  duty  of  contentment. 

I  have  spoken  in  a  respectful  manner  of  the  book  of  Job  in  the 
former  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  but  without  knowing  at  that  time 

*  Particulars  of  the  Families  from  the  second  chapter  of  Ezra. 


Chap.  II. 

Bio't  forw 

.12,243 

Bro't  forw.  15,953 

Bro't  foi  w.24,144 

Verse  3       2172 

Ver.  14 

2036 

Ver.  25         743 

Ver.  36        973 

4         372 

15 

454 

26        621 

37       1052 

5         775 

L| 

98 

27         122 

38       1257 

6      2812 

17 

823 

28        223 

39       1017 

7       1254 

18 

112 

29          52 

40          74 

8        945 

19 

223 

30        156 

41         12S 

9        760 

20 

95 

31       1254 

42        139 

10        642 

21 

123 

32        320 

58        392 

11         (>23 

22 

56 

33        725 

•    60        652 

12       1222 

23 

128 

34         345 

13        666 

24 

42 

35      3630 

12,2-13 

15,953 

24,144 

Total,     29,818 

THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  103 

what  I  have  learned  since  ;  which  is,  that  from  all  the  evidence 
that  can  be  collected,  the  book  of  Job  does  not  belong  to  the 
Bible. 

I  have  seen  the  opinion  of  two  Hebrew  commentators,  Abenezra 
and  Spinosa,  upon  this  subject ;  they  both  say  that  the  book  of  Job 
carries  no  internal  evidence  of  being  an  Hebrew  book  ;  that  the 
genius  of  the  composition,  and  drama  of  the  piece,  are  not  He- 
brew ;  that  it  has  been  translated  from  another  language  into  He- 
brew, and  that  the  author  of  the  book  was  a  Gentile  ;  that  the 
character  represented  under  the  name  of  Satan  (which  is  the  first 
and  only  time  this  name  is  mentioned  in  the  Bible)  does  not  cor- 
respond to  any  Hebrew  idea ;  and  that  the  two  convocations  which 
the  Deity  is  supposed  to  have  made  of  those,  whom  the  poem  calls 
sons  of  God,  and  the  familiarity  which  this  supposed  Satan  is  sta- 
ted to  have  with  the  Deity,  are  in  the  same  case. 

It  may  also  be  observed,  that  the  book  shows  itself  to  be  the 
production  of  a  mind  cultivated  in  science,  which  the  Jews,  so  far 
from  being  famous  for,  were  very  ignorant  of.  The  allusions  to 
objects  of  natural  philosophy  are  frequent  and  strong,  and  are  of  a 
different  cast  to  any  thing  in  the  books  known  to  be  Hebrew.  The 
astronomical  names,  Pleiades,  Orion,  and  Arcturus,  are  Greek, 
and  not  Hebrew  names  ;  and  as  it  does  not  appear  from  any  thing 
that  is  to  be  found  in  the  Bible,  that  the  Jews  knew  any  thing  of 
astronomy,  or  that  they  studied  it,  they  had  no  translation  of  those 
names  into  their  own  language,  but  adopted  the  names  as  they 
found  them  in  the  poem. 

That  the  Jews  did  translate  the  literary  productions  of  the  Gen- 
tile nations  into  the  Hebrew  language,  and  mix  them  with  their 
own,  is  not  a  matter  of  doubt ;  the  thirty-first  chapter  of  Proverbs 
is  an  evidence  of  this  ;  it  is  there  said,  ver.  1 ,  The  word  of  king 
Lemuel,  the  prophecy  which  his  mother  taught  him.  This  verse 
stands  as  a  preface  to  the  proverbs  that  follow,  and  which  are  not 
the  proverbs  of  Solomon,  but  of  Lemuel ;  and  this  Lemuel  was  not 
one  of  the  kings  of  Israel,  nor  of  Judah,  but  of  some  other  country, 
and  consequently  a  Gentile.  The  Jews,  however,  have  adopted 
his  proverbs,  and  as  they  cannot  give  any  account  who  the  author 
of  the  book  of  Job  was,  nor  how  they  came  by  the  book  ;  and  as  it 
differs  in  character  from  the  Hebrew  writings,  and  stands  totally 
unconnected  with  every  other  book  and  chapter  in  the  Bible  before 
it,  and  after  it,  it  has  all  the  circumstantial  evidence  of  being  orig- 
inally a  book  of  the  Gentiles.* 

*  The  prayer  known  by  the  name  of  Agur's  Prayer,  in  the  30th  chapter  of  Pro- 
verbs, immediately  preceding  the  proverbs  of  Lemuel,  and  which  is  the  only  sensible, 
well-conceived,  and  well-expressed  prayer  in  the  Bible,  has  much  the  appearance  of 
being  a  prayer  taken  from  the  Gentiles.  The  name  of  Agur  occurs  on  no  other  occas- 
ion than  this  ;  and  he  is  introduced,  together  wich  the  prayer  ascribed  to  him,  in  the 
same  manner,  and  nearly  in  the  same  words,  that  Lemuel  and  his  proverbs  are  intro- 
duced in  die  chapter  that  follows.  The  first  verse  of  the  30th  chapter  says,  "The 
words  of  Agur,  die  son  of  lakeh,  even  die  prophecy  j"  here  the  word  prophecy  is  used 


104  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

The  Bible-makers,  and  those  regulators  of  time,  the  Chronolo- 
gists,  appear  to  have  been  at  a  loss  where  to  place,  and  how  to  dis- 
pose of  the  book  of  Job  ;  for  it  contains  no  one  historical  circum- 
stance, nor  allusion  to  any,  that  might  serve  to  determine  its  place 
in  the  Bible.  But  it  would  not  have  answered  the  purpose  of 
these  men  to  have  informed  the  world  of  their  ignorance  ;  and 
therefore  they  have  affixed  it  to  the  Eera  of  1520  years  before 
Christ,  which  is  during  the  time  the  Israelites  were  in  Egypt,  and 
for  which  they  have  just  as  much  authority  and  no  more  than  I 
should  have  for  saying  it  was  a  thousand  years  before  that  period. 
The  probability,  however,  is,  that  it  is  older  than  any  book  in  the 
Bible  ;  and  it  is  the  only  one  that  can  be  read  without  indignation 
or  disgust. 

We  know  nothing  of  what  the  ancient  Gentile  world  (as  it  is 
called)  was  before  the  time  of  the  Jews,  whose  practice  has  been 
to  calumniate  and  blacken  the  character  of  all  other  nations  ;  and 
it  is  from  the  Jewish  accounts  that  we  h'ave  learned  to  call  them 
heathens.  But  as  far  as  we  know  to  the  contrary,  they  were  a  just 
and  moral  people,  and  not  addicted,  like  the  Jews,  to  cruelty  and 
revenge,  but  of  whose  profession  of  faith  we  are  unacquainted.  It 
appears  to  have  bee.i  their  custom  to  personify  both  virtue  and 
vice  by  statues  and  images,  as  is  done  now-a-days  both  by  statuary 
and  by  painting  ;  but  it  does  not  follow  from  this,  that  they  wor- 
shipped them  any  more  than  we  do.  I  pass  on  to  the  Book  of 

Psalms,  of  which  it  is  not  necessary  to  make  much  observation. 
Some  of  them  are  moral,  and  others  are  very  revengeful ;  and  the 
greater  part  relates  to  certain  local  circumstances  of  the  Jewish 
nation  at  the  time  they  were  written,  with  which  we  have  nothing 
to  do.  It  is,  however,  art  error  or  an  imposition  to  call  them  the 
Psalms  of  David  :  they  are  a  collection,  as  song-books  are  now- 
a-days,  from  different  song-writers,  who  lived  at  different  times. 
The  137th  Psalm  could  not  have  been  written  till  more  than  400 
years  after  the  time  of  David,  because  it  is  written  in  commemora- 
tion of  an  event,  the  captivity  of  the  Jews  in  Babylon,  which  did 
not  happen  till  that  distance  of  time.  "  By  the  rivers  of  Babylon  we 
sat  down  j  yea,  we  icepi  wlien  we  remembered  Zion.  We  hanged  our 
hai*ps  upon  the  willows,  in  the  midst  thereof ;  for  there  they  that  car- 
ried us  away  captive,  required  of  us  a  song,  saying,  sing  us  one  of 
the  songs  of  Zion."'  Asa  man  would  say  to  an  American,  or  to  a 
Frenchman,  or  to  an  Englishman,  sing  us  one  of  your  American 
songs,  or  your  French  songs,  or  your  English  songs.  This  remark 
wkh  respect  to  the  time  this  Psalm  was  written,  is  of  no  other  use 

with  the  same  application  it  has  in  the  following  chapter  of  Lemuel,  unconnected  with 
any  thing  of  prediction.  The  prayer  of  Agur.is  in  the  Sth  and  9th  verses,  (f Remove 
far  from  me  vanity  and  lies;  give  me  neither  riches  nor  poverty,  but  feed  me 
with  food  convenient  for  me:  lest  I  be.  full  and  deny  thec,  and.  say,  JVho  is  the 
I^ord  !  or  lest  I  be  poor  and  steal,  and  take,  the  name  of  my  God  in  vain."  This 
has  not  any  of  the  marks  of  being  a  Jewish  prayer,  for  the  Jews  never  prayed  but 
\vhen  they  were  in  trouble,  and  never  for  any  tiling  but  victory,  vengeance,  and  riches. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  105 

than  to  show  (among  others  already  mentioned)  the  general  impo- 
sition the  world  has  been  under,  with  respect  to  the.  authors  of  the 
Bible.  No  regard  has  been  paid  to  time,  place,  and  circumstance  ; 
and  the  names  of  persons  have  been  affixed  to  the  several  books, 
which  it  was  as  impossible  they  should  write,  as  that  a  man  should 
walk  in  procession  at  his  own  funeral. 

The  Book  of  Proverbs.  These,  like  the  Psalms,  are  a  collec- 
tion, and  that  from  authors  belonging  to  other  nations  than  those 
of  the  Jewish  nation,  as  I  have  shown  in  the  observations  upon 
the  book  of  Job  ;  besides  which,  some  of  the  proverbs  ascribed  to 
Solomon,  did  not  appear  till  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the 
death  of  Solomon  ;  for  it  is  said  in  the  1st  verse  of  the  25th  chap- 
ter, "  These  are  also  proverbs  of  Solomon,  which  the  men  ofHezekiah, 
king  ofJudah,  copied  out."  It  was  two  hundred  and  fifty  years 
from  the  time  of  Salomon  to  the  time  of  Hezekiah.  When  a  man 
is  famous,  and  his  name  is  abroad,  he  is  made  the  putative  father 
of  things  he  never  said  or  did  ;  and  this,  most  probably,  has  been 
the  case  with  Solomon.  It  appears  to  have  been  the  fashion  of 
that  day  to  make  proverbs,  as  it  is  now  to  make  jest-books,  and 
father  them  upon  those  who  never  saw  them. 

The  Book  of  Ecclesiastes,  or,, the  Preacher,  is  also  ascribed  to 
Solomon,  and  that  with  much  reason,  if  not  with  truth.  It  is  Writ- 
ten as  the  solitary  reflections  of  a  worn-out  debauchee,  such  as 
Solomon  was,  who  looking  back  on  scenes  he  can  no  longer  enjoy, 
cries  out,  Ml  is  vanity  !  A  great  deal  of  the  metaphor  and  of  the 
sentiment  is  obscure,  most  probably  by  translation  ;  but  enough  is 
left  to  show  they  were  strongly  pointed  in  the  original.*  From 
what  is  transmitted  to  us  of  the  character  of  Solomon,  he  was  wit- 
ty, ostentatious,  dissolute,  and  at  last  melancholy.  He  lived  fast, 
and  died,  tired  of  the  world,  at  the  age  of  fifty-eight  years. 

Seven  hundred  wives,  and  three  hundred  concubines,  are  worse 
than  none  ;  and  however  it  may  carry  with  it  the  appearance  of 
heightened  enjoyment,  it  defeats  all  the  felicity  of  affection,  by 
leaving  it  no  point  to  fix  upon  ;  divided  love  is  never  happy.  This 
was  the  case  with  Solomon  :  and  if  he  could  not,  with  all  his  pre- 
tensions to  wisdom,  discover  it  beforehand,  he  merited,  unpitied, 
the  mortification  he  afterwards  endured.  In  this  point  of  view,  his 
preaching  is  unnecessary,  because,  to  know  the  consequences,  it  is 
only  necessary  to  know  the  cause.  Seven  hundred  wives,  and 
three  hundred  concubines,  would  have  stood  in  place  of  the  whole 
book.  It  was  needless  after  this  to  say,  that  all  was  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit ;  for  it  is  impossible  to  derive  happiness  from 
the  company  of  those  whom  we  deprive  of  happiness. 

To  be  happy  in  old  age,  it  is  necessary  that  we  accustom  our- 
selves to  objects  that  can  accompany  the  mind  all  the  way  through 

*  Thote  that  look  out  of  the  window  shall  be  darkened,  is  an  obscure  figure  iq 
translation  for  loss  of  sight. 


106  THE    AGE    OP    REASON. 

life,  and  that  we  take  the  rest  as  good  in  their  day.  The  mere 
,  man  of  pleasure  is  miserable  in  old  age  ;  and  the  mere  drudge  in 
business  is  but  little  better  :  whereas,  natural  philosophy,  mathe- 
matical and  mechanical  science,  are  a  continual  source  of  tran- 
quil pleasure  ;  and  in  spite  of  the  gloomy  dogmas  of  priests,  and 
of  superstition,  the  study  of  those  things  is  the  study  of  the  true 
theology  ;  it  teaches  man  to  know  and  to  admire  the  Creator,  for 
the  principles  of  science  are  in  the  creation,  and  are  unchangeable, 
and  of  divine  origin. 

Those  who  knew  Benjamin  Franklin  will  recollect,  that  his 
mind  was  ever  young  ;  his  temper  ever  serene  :  science,  that  nev- 
er grows  grey,  was  always  his  mistress.  He  was  never  without 
an  object,  for  when  we  cease  to  have  an  object,  we  become  like 
an  invalid  in  an  hospital  waiting  for  death. 

Solomon's  Songs  are  amorous  and  foolish  enough,  but  which 
wrinkled  fanaticism  has  called  divine.  The  compilers  of  the  Bi- 
ble have  placed  these  songs  after  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes ;  and 
the  chronologists  have  affixed  to  them  the  sera  of  1014  years  before 
Christ,  at  which  time  Solomon,  according  to  the  same  chronology, 
was  nineteen  years  of  age,  and  was  then  forming  his  seraglio  of 
wives  and  concubines.  The  Bible-makers  and  the  chronologists 
should  have  managed  this  matter  a  little  better,  and  either  have 
said  nothing  about  the  time,  or  chosen  a  time  less  inconsistent  with 
the  supposed  divinity  of  those  songs  ;  for  Solomon  was  then  in  the 
honey-moon  of  one  thousand  debaucheries. 

It  should  also  have  occurred  to  them,  that  as  he  wrote,  if  he 
did  write,  the  book  of  Ecclesiastes,  long  after  these  songs,  and 
in  which  he  exclaims,  that  all  is  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit  ; 
that  he  included  those  songs  in  that  description.  This  is  the 
more  probable,  because  he  says,  or  somebody  .for  him,  Ecclesias- 
tes, chap.  ii.  v.  8,  "  / got  me  men  singers,  and  women  singers, 
(most  probably  to  sing  those  songs)  and  musical  instruments  of  all 
sorts  ;  and  behold  (ver.  11,)  all  was  vanity  and  vexation  of  spirit." 
The  compilers,  however,  have  done  their  work  but  by  halves ; 
for  as  they  have  given  us  the  songs,  they  should  have  given  us 
the  tunes,  that  we  might  sing  them. 

The  books,  called  the  books  of  the  Prophets,  fill  up  all  the  re- 
maining part  of  the  Bible  ;  they  are  sixteen  in  number,  begin- 
ning with  Isaiah,  and  ending  with  Malachi  ;  of  which  I  have 
given  you  a  list,  in  the  observations  upon  Chronicles.  *  Of  these 
sixteen  prophets,  all  of  whom,  except  the  three  last,  lived  with- 
in the  time  the  books  of  Kings  and  Chronicles  were  written  ; 
two  only,  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  are  mentioned  in  the  history  of 
those  books.  I  shall  begin  with  those  two,  reserving  what  I 
have  to  say  on  the  general  character  of  the  men  called  prophets 
to  another  part  of  the  work. 

Whoever  will  take  the  trouble  of  reading  the  book  ascribed  to 
Isaiah,  will  find  it  one  of  the  most  wild  and  disorderly  composi- 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  107 

tions  ever  put  together  ;  it  has  neither  beginning,  middle,  nor  end  ; 
and  except  a  short  historical  part,  and  a  few  sketches  of  his- 
tory in  two  or  three  of  the  first  chapters,  is  one  continued  inco- 
herent, bombastical  rant,  full  of  extravagant  methaphor,  without 
application,  and  destitute  of  meaning  ;  a  school-boy  would  scarce- 
ly have  been  excusable  for  writing  such  stuff ;  it  is  (at  least  in 
the  translation)  that  kind  of  composition  and  false  taste,  that  is 
properly  called  prose  run  mad. 

The  historical  part  begins  at  the  36th  chapter,  and  is  continu- 
ed to  the  end  of  the  39th  chapter.  It  relates  to  some  matters  that 
are  said  to  have  passed  during  the  reign  of  Hezekiah,  king  of  Ju- 
dah,  at  which  time  Isaiah  lived.  This  fragment  of  history  be- 
gins and  ends  abruptly  ;  it  has  not  the  least  connection  with  the 
chapter  that  precedes  it,  nor  with  that  which  follows  it,  nor  with 
any  other  in  the  book.  It  is  probable  that  Isaiah  wrote  this 
fragment  himself,  because  he  was  an  actor  in  the  circumstances 
it  treats  of ;  but,  except  this  part,  there  are  scarcely  two  chap- 
ters that  have  any  connection  with  each  other  ;  one  is  entitled, 
at  the  beginning  of  the  first  verse,  the  burden  of  Babylon  ;  an- 
other, the  burden  of  Moab  ;  another,  the  burden  of  Damascus  ; 
another,  the  burden  of  Egypt  ;  another  the  burden  of  the  Desart 
of  the  Sea  ;  another,  the  burden  of  the  Valley  of  Vision  ;  as 
you  would  sav,  the  story  of  the  knight  of  the  burning  mountain, 
the  story  of  Cinderella,  or  the  children  in  the  wood,  &c.  &c. 

I  have  already  shown,  in  the  instance  of  the  two  last  verses  of 
Chronicles,  and  the  three  first  in  Ezra,  that  the  compilers  of  the 
Bible  mixed  and  confounded  the  writings  of  different  authors 
with  each  other,  which  alone,  were  there  no  other  cause,  is  suf- 
ficient to  destroy  the  authenticity  of  any  compilation,  because 
it  is  more  than  presumptive  evidence  that  the  compilers  are 
ignorant  who  the  authors  were.  A  very  glaring  instance  of  this 
occurs  in  the  book  ascribed  to  Isaiah,  the  latter  part  of  the  44th 
chapter,  and  the  beginning  of  the  45th,  so  far  from  having  been 
written  by  Isaiah,  could  only  have  been  written  by  some  person 
who  lived,  at  least,  an  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  Isaiah  was 
dead. 

These  chapters  are  a  compliment  to  Cyrus,  who  permitted  the 
Jews  to  return  to  Jerusalem  from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  to 
rebuild  Jerusalem  and  the  temple,  as  is  stated  in  Ezra.  The 
last  verse  of  the  44th  chapter,  and  the  beginning  of  the  45th,  are 
in  the  following  words  :  "  That  saith  of  Cyrus,  he  is  my  shepherd, 
and  shall  perform  all  my  pleasure  ;  even  saying  to  Jerusalem,  thou 
shall  be  built  ;  and  to  the  temple,  thy  foundations  shall  be  laid  ;  thus 
saith  the  Lord  fo  his  anointed,  to  Cyrus,  whose  right  hand  I  have 
holden  to  subdue  nations  before  him,  and  I  will  loose  the  loins  of  kings 
Jio  open  before  him  the  two-leaved  gates,  and  the  gates  shall  not  be 
shut ;  I  mil  go  before  thee,  $c» 


103  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

What  audacity  of  church  and  priestly  ignorance  it  is  to  impose 
this  book  upon  the  world  as  the  writing  of  Isaiah,  when  Isaiah, 
according  to  their  own  chronology,  died  soon  after  the  death  of 
Hezekiah,  which  was  698  years  before  Christ  ;  and. the  decree 
of  Cyrus,  in  favor  of  the  Jews  returning  to  Jerusalem,  was,  ac- 
cording to  the  same  chronology,  536  years  before  Christ  ;  which 
was  a  distance  of  time  between  the  two  of  162  years.  I  do  not 
suppose  that  the  compilers  of  the  Bible  made  these  books,  but 
rather  that  they  picked  up  some  loose,  anonymous  essays,  and 
put  them  together  under  the  names  of  such  authors  as  best  suit- 
ed their  purpose.  They  have  encouraged  the  imposition,  which 
is  next  to  inventing  it ;  for  it  was  impossible  but  they  must 
have  observed  it. 

When  we  see  the  studied  craft  of  the  scripture-makers,  in 
making  every  part  of  this  romantic  book  of  school-boy's  elo- 
quence, bend  to  the  monstrous  idea  of  a  Son  of  God,  begotten 
by  a  ghost  on  the  body  of  a  virgin,  there  is  IK>  imposition  we  are 
not  justified  in  suspecting  them  of.  Every  phrase  and  circum- 
stance are  marked  with  the  barbarous  hand  of  superstitious  tor- 
ture, and  forced  into  meanings  it  was  impossible  they  could  have. 
The  head  of  every  chapter,  and  the  top  of  every  page,  are  blaz- 
oned with  the  names  of  Christ  and  the  church,  that  the  unwary 
reader  might  suck  in  the  error  before  he  began  to  read. 

BeJwld  a  virgim  shall  conceive,  and  bear  a  son,  Isaiah,  chap.  vii. 
ver.  14,  has  been  interpreted  to  mean  the  person  called  Jesus 
Christ,  and  his  mother  Mary,  and  has  been  echoed  through  Chris- 
tendom for  more  than  a  thousand  years  ;  and  such  has  been  the 
rage  of  this  opinion,  that  scarcely  a  spot  in  it  but  has  been  stain- 
ed with  blood  and  marked  with  desolation  in  consequence  of  it. 
Though  it  is  not  my  intention  to  enter  into  controversy  on  sub- 
jects of  this  kind,  but  to  confine  myself  to  show  that  the  Bible  is 
spurious  ;  and  thus,  by  taking  away  the  foundation,  to  over- 
throw at  once  the  whole  structure  of  superstition  raised  thereon  ; 
I  will,  however,  stop  a  moment  to  expose  the  fallacious  applica- 
tion of  this  passage. 

Whether  Isaiah  was  playing  a  trick  with  Ahaz,  king  of  Judah, 
to  whom  this  passage  is  spoken,  is  no  business  of  mine  ;  I  mean 
only  to  show  the  misapplication  of  the  passage,  and  that  it  has  no 
more  reference  to  Christ  and  his  mother,  than  it  has  to  me  and 
my  mother.  The  story  is  simply  this  : 

The  king  of  Syria  and  the  king  of  Israel  (I  have  already  men- 
tioned that  the  Jews  were  split  into  two  nations,  one  of  which 
was  called  Judah,  the  capital  of  which  was  Jerusalem,  and  the 
other  Israel)  made  war  jointly  against  Ahaz,  king  of  Judah,  and 
marched  their  armies  towards  Jerusalem.  Ahaz  and  his  people 
became  alarmed,  and  the  account  says.  ver.  2.  "  Their  hearts 
were  moved  as  the  trees  of  the  wood  are  moved  irith  the  wind  " 


THE    AGE    OF   REASON.  !09 

In  this  situation  of  things,  Isaiah  addresses  himself  to  Ahaz, 
and  assures  him  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  (the  cant  phrase  of  all 
the  prophets)  that  these  two  kings  should  not  succeed  against 
him  ;  and  to  satisfy  Ahaz  that  this  should  be  the  case,  tells  him 
to  ask  a  sign.  This,  the  account  says,  Ahaz  declined  doing  ; 
giving  as  a  reason,  that  he  would  not  tempt  the  Lord  ;  upon  which 
Isaiah,  who  is  the  speaker,. says,  ver.  14,  "  Therefore  the  Lord 
himself  shall  give  you  a  sign  ;  behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive,  and 
bear  a  son  ,•"  and  the  16th  verse  says,  "  Jind  before  this  child 
shall  kngw  to  refuse  the  evil,  and  choose  the  goody  the  land  which 
thou  abhorrest  or  deadest  (meaning  Syria  and  the  kingdom  of 
Israel)  shall  be  forsaken  of  both  her  kings."  Here  then  was 
the  sign,  and  the  time  limited  for  the  completion  of  the  assur- 
ance or  promise  ;  namely,  before  this  child  should  know  to  re- 
fuse the  evil,  and  choose  the  good. 

Isaiah  having  committed  himself  thus  far,  it  became  necessary 
to  him,  in  order  to  avoid  the  imputation  of  being  a  false  prophet, 
and  the  consequence  thereof,  to  take  measures  to  make  this  sign 
appear.  It  certainly  was  not  a  difficult  thing,  in  any  time  of  the 
world,  to  find  a  girl  with  child,  or  to  make  her  so  ;  and  perhaps 
Isaiah  knew  of  one  before-hand  ;  for  I  do  not  suppose  that  the 
prophets  of  that  day  were  any  more  to  be  trusted  than  the  priests 
of  this:  be  that  however  as  it  may,  he  says  in  the  next  chapter, 
ver.  2,  "  And  I  took  unto  me  faithful  witnesses  to  record,  Uriah 
the  priest,  and  Zechariah  the  son  of  Jeberechiah,  and  /  went  unto 
the  prophetess,  and  she  conceived  and  bare  a  sow." 

Here  then  is  the  whole  story,  foolish  as  it  is?  of  this  child  and 
this  virgin  ;  and  it  is  upon  the  bare-faced  perversion  of  this  story, 
that  the  book  of  Matthew,  and  the  impudence  and  sordid  interests 
of  priests  in  latter  times,  have  founded  a  theory  which  they  call 
the  gospel  ;  and  have  applied  this  story  to  signify  the  person  they 
call  Jesus  Christ  ;  begotten,  they  say,  by  a  ghost,  whom  they 
call  holy,  on  the  body  of  a  woman,  engaged  in  marriage,  and 
afterwards  married,  whom  they  call  a  virgin,  700  years  after  this 
foolish  story  was  told  ;  a  theory  which,  speaking  for  myself,  I 
hesitate  not  to  believe,  and  to  say,  is  as  "fabulous  and  as  false  as 
God  is  true.* 

But  to  show  the  imposition  and  falsehood  of  Isaiah,  we  have 
only  to  attend  to  the  sequel  of  this  story  ;  which,  though  it  is 
passed  over  in  silence  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  is  related  in  the  28th 
chapter  of  the  second  Chronicles  ;  and  which  is,  that  instead  of 
these  two  kings  failing  in  their  attempt  against  Ahaz,  king  of  Ju- 
dah,  as  Isaiah  had  pretended  to  foretel  in  the  name  of  the  Lord, 
they  succeeded  ;  Ahaz  was  defeated  and  destroyed  ;  an  hun- 

*In  the  14th  verse  of  the  vii.  chapter,  it  is  said,  that  the  child  should  be  called 
Immanuel;  but  this  name  was  not  given  to  either  of  the  children,  otherwise  than  as 
a  character,  which  the  word  signifies.  That  of  the  prophetess  was  called  Maher- 
shalal-hash-baz,  and  that  of  Mary  was  called  Jesus. 

10 


1JU  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

dred  and  twenty  thousand  of  his  people  were  slaughtered  ;  Je- 
rusalem was  plundered,  and  two  hundred  thousand  women,  and 
sons  and  daughters,  carried  into  captivity.  Thus  much  for  this 
lying  prophet  and  impostor  Isaiah,  and  the  book  of  falsehoods 
that  bears  his  name.  I  pass  on  to  the  book  of 

Jeremiah.  This  prophet,  as  he  is  called,  lived  in  the  time 
that  Nebuchadnezzar  besieged  Jerusalem,  in  the  reign  of  Zede- 
kiah,  the  last  king  of  Judah  ;  and  the  suspicion  was  strong 
against  him,  that  he  was  a  traitor  in  the  interest  of  Nebuchad- 
nezzar. Every  thing  relating  to  Jeremiah  shows  him  to  have 
been  a  man  of  an  equivocal  character  ;  in  his  metaphor  of  the 
potter  and  the  clay,  c.  xviii.  he  guards  his  prognostications  in  such 
a  crafty  manner,  as  always  to  leave  himself  a  door  to  escape  rty, 
in  case  the  event  should  be  contrary  to  what  he  had  predicted. 

In  the  7th  and  8th  verses  of  that  chapter,  he  makes  the  Al- 
mighty to  say,  u  At  what  instant  I  shall  speak  concerning  a  na- 
tion, and  concerning  a  kingdom,  to  pluck  up,  and  to  pull  down, 
and  destroy  it  ;  if  that  nation,  against  whom  I  have  pronounced, 
turn  from  their  evil,  I  will  repent  me  of  the  evil  that  I  thought  to 
do  unto  them."  Here  was  a  proviso  against  one  side  of  the 
case  ;  now  for  the  other  side. 

Verses  9  and  10,  "  At  what  instant  I  shalt  speak  concerning 
a  nation,  and  concerning  a  kingdom,  to  build  and  to  plant  it,  if  it 
do  evil  in  my  sight,  that  it  obey  not  my  voice  ;  then  I  will  repent 
me  of  the  good  wherewith  I  said  I  would  benefit  them."  Her? 
is  a  proviso  against  the  other  side  ;  and,  according  to  this  plan 
of  prophesying,  a  prophet  could  never  be  wrong,  however  mis- 
taken the  Almighty  might  be.  This  sort  of  absurd  subterfuge, 
and  this  manner  of  speaking  of  the  Almighty,  as  one  would  speak 
of  a  man,  is  consistent  with  nothing  but  the  stupidity  of  the  Bible. 

As  to  the  authenticity  of  the  book,  it  is  only  necessary  to  read 
it  in  order  to  decide  positively,  that,  though  some  passages  record- 
ed therein  may  have  been  spoken  by  Jeremiah,  he  is  not  the  au- 
thor of  the  book.  The  historical  parts,  if  they  can  be  called  by 
that  name,  are  in  the  most  confused  condition  :  the  same  events 
are  several  times  repeated,  and  that  in  a  manner  different,  and 
sometimes  in  contradiction  to  each  other  ;  and  this  disorder  runs 
even  to  the  last  chapter,  where  the  history,  upon  which  the  great- 
er part  of  the  book  has  been  employed,  begins  a-new,  and  ends 
abruptly.  The  book  has  all  the  appearance  of  being  a  medley 
of  unconnected  anecdotes,  respecting  persons  and  things  of  that 
time,  collected  together  in  the  same  rude  manner  as  if  the  various 
and  contradictory  accounts,  that  are  to  be  found  in  a  bundle  of 
newspapers,  respecting  persons  and  things  of  the  present  day, 
were  put  together  without  date,  order,  or  explanation.  I  will  give 
two  or  three  examples  of  this  kind. 

It  appears,  from  the  account  of  the  37th  chapter,  that  the  ar- 
my of  Nebuchadnezzar,  which  is  called  the  army  of  the  Chal- 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  Ill 

deans,  had  besieged  Jerusalem  some  time  ;  and  on  their  hearing 
that  the  army  of  Pharaoh,  of  Egypt,  was  marching  against  them, 
they  raised  the  siege,  and  retreated  for  a  time.  It  may  here  be 
proper  to  mention,  in  order  to  understand  this  confused  history, 
that  Nebuchadnezzar  had  besieged  and  taken  Jerusalem,  during 
the  r^ign  of  Jehoiakim,  the  predecessor  of  Zedekiah  ;  and  that 
it  was  Nebuchadnezzar  who  had  made  Zedekiah  king,  or  rather 
vice-roy  ;  and  that  this  second  siege,  of  which  the  book  of  Jere- 
miah treats,  was  in  consequence  of  the  revolt  of  Zedekiah  .against 
Nebuchadnezzar.  This  will,  in  some  measure,  account  for  the 
suspicion  that  affixes  itself  to  Jeremiah,  of  being  a  traitor,  and  in 
the  interest  of  Nebuchadnezzar ;  whom  Jeremiah  calls,  in  the 
43d  chap.  ver.  10,  the  servant  of  God. 

The  I  !th  verse  of  this  chapter  (the  37th,)  says,  "  And  it  cam*) 
*o  pass,  that,  when  the  army  of  the  Chaldeans  was  broken  up  from 
Jerusalem,  for  fear  of  Pharaoh's  army,  that  Jeremiah  went  forth 
out  of  Jerusalem,  to  go  (as  this  account  states,)  into  the  land  of 
Benjamin,  to  separate  himself  thence  in  the  midst  of  the  people  ; 
and  when  he  was  in  the  gate  of  Benjamin,  a  captain  of  the  ward 
was  there,  whose  name  was  Irijah  ;  and  he  took  Jeremiah  the 
prophet,  saying,  Thou  fallest  away  to  the  Chaldeans ;  then  Jere- 
miah said,  It  is  false,  I  fall  not  away  to  the  Chaldeans.'  Jeremi- 
ah being  thus  stopped  and  accused,  was,  after  being  examined, 
committed  to  prison,  on  suspicion  of  being  a  traitor,  where  he  re- 
mained, as  is  stated  in  the  last  verse  of  this  chapter. 

But  the  next  chapter  gives  an  account  of  the  imprisonment  of 
Jeremiah,  which  has  no  connection  with  this  account,  but  ascribes 
his  imprisonment  to  another  circumstance,  and  for  which  we  must 
go  back  to  the  the  21st  chapter.  It  is  there  stated,  ver,  1,  that 
Zedekiah  sent  Pashur,  the  son  of  Malchiah,  and  Zephaniah,  the 
son  of  Maaseiah  the  priest,  to  Jeremiah,  to  inquire  of  him  con- 
cerning Nebuchadnezzar,  whose  army  was  then  before  Jerusa- 
lem ;  and  Jeremiah  said  to  them,  ver.  8,  "Thus  saith  the  Lord, 
Behold  I  set  before  you  the  way  of  life,  and  the  way  of  death  ; 
he  that  abideth  in  this  city  shall  die  by  the  sword,  and  by  the 
famine,  and  by  the  pestilence  ;  but  he  that  goeth  out  and  falleth 
to  the  Chaldeans  that  besiege  you,  he  shall  live,  and  his  life  shall 
be  unto  him  for  a  prey."  This  interview  and  conference  breaks 
off  abruptly  at  the  end  of  the  10th  verse  of  the  21st  chapter  ;  and 
such  is  the  disorder  of  this  book,  that  we  have  to  pass  over  six- 
teen chapters,  upon  various  subjects,  in  order  to  come  at  the  con- 
tinuation and  event  of  this  conference  ;  and  this  brings  us  to  the 
first  verse  of  the  38th  chapter,  as  I  have  just  mentioned. 

The  38th  chapter  opens  with  saying,  "  Then  Shephatiah,  the 
son  of  Mattan  ;  Gedaliah,  the  son  of  Pashur  ;  and  Juhal,  the 
son  of  Shelemiah  ;  and  Pashur,  the  son  of  Malchiah  ;  (here  are 
more  persons  mentioned  than  in  the  21st  chapter)  heard  the  words 
that  Jeremiah  spoke  unto  the  people,  saying,  Thus  saith  thje  Lvrd, 


1  12  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

He  that  remamelh  in  this  city,  shall  die  by  the  sword,  by  the  famine, 
and  by  the  pestilence  ;  but  he  that  goeth  forth  to  the  Chaldeans  shall 
live  j  for  he  shall  have  his  life  for  a  prey,  and  shall  live  ;  (which  are 
the  words  of  the  conference)  therefore,  (say  they  to  Zedekiah,)  we 
beseech  thee,  let  us  put  this  man  to  death,  for  thus  he  weakeneth 
the  hands  of  the  men  of  war  that  remain  in  this  city,  and  the  hands  of 
all  the  people  in  speaking  such  words  unto  them  ;  for  this  man  seekelh 
not  the  welfare  of  the  people,  but  the  hurt :"  and  at  the  6th  verse  it  is 
said,  "  Then  they  took  Jeremiah,  and  put  him  into  a  dungeon  of 
Malchiah." 

These  two  accounts  are  different  and  contradictory.  The  one 
ascribes  his  imprisonment  to  his  attempt  to  escape  out  of  the  ci- 
ty ;  the  other  to  his  preaching  and  prophesying  in  the  city  ;  the 
one  to  his  being  seized  by  the  guard  at  the  gate  ;  the  other  to  his 
being  accused  before  Zedekiah,  by  the  conferees.* 

In  the  next  chapter  (the  39th)  we  have  another  instance  of  the 
disordered  state  of  this  book  :  for  notwithstanding  the  siege  of  the 
city,  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  has  been  the  subject  of  several  of  the 
precedin  g  chapters,  particularly  the  37th  and  38th;  the  39th  chap- 
ter begins  as  if  not  a  word  had  been  said  upon  the  subject ;  and  as 
if  the  reader  was  to  be  informed  of  every  particular  respecting 
it  ;  for  it  begins  with  saying,  ver.  1,  "In  the  ninth  year  of  Zedekiah, 
king  ofJudah,  in  the  tentli  month,  came  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Baby- 
lon, and  all  his  army,  against  Jerusalem,  and  besieged  it,  &,c.  &.c." 

But  the  instance  in  the  last  chapter  (the  52d)  is  still  more  glar- 
ing ;  for  though  the  story  has  been  told  over  and  over  again,  this 

*  I  observed  two  chapters,  16th  and!7th,  in  the  first  book  of  Samuel,  that  contradict 
each  other  with  respect  to  David,  and  the  manner  he  became  acquainted  with  Saul;  as 
the  37th  and  38th  chapters  of  the  book  of  Jeremiah  contradict  each  other  with  respect 
to  die  cause  of  Jeremiah's  imprisonment. 

In  the  16th  chapter  of  Samuel,  it  is  said,  that  an  evil  spirit  of  God  troubled  Saul, 
and  that  his  servants  advised  him  (as  a  remedy)  "to  seek  out  a  man  who  was  a  cun- 
ning player  upon  the  harp."  And  Sam1  said,  ver.  17,  "Provide  now  a  man  that  can 
play  well,  anil  bring  him  unto  me."  Then  answered  one  of  his  servants,  and  said.  Be- 
hold, I  have  seen  a  son  of  Jesse,  the  Bethlehemite,  that  is  cunning  in  playing,  And  a 
mighty  man,  and  a  man  of  war,  and  prudent  in  matters,  and  a  comely  person,  and 
the  Lord  is  with  him  ;  wherefore  Saul  sent  messengers  unto  Jesse,  and  said,  "  Send 
me  David,  thy  son."  And  (verse  21)  David  came  to  Saul,  and  stood  before  him,  and 
he  loved  him  greatly,  and  he  became  his  armour-bearer;  and  when  the  evil  Spirit  of 
God  was  upon  Saul,  (verse  23)  David  took  his  harp,  and  played  with  his  hand,  and 
Saul  was  refreshed,  and  was  well. 

But  the  next  chapter  (17)  gives  an  account,  all  different  to  this,  of  the  manner 
that  Saul  and  David  became  acquainted.  Here  it  is  ascribed  to  David's  encoun- 
ter with  Goliah,  when  David  was  sent  by  his  father  to  carry  provision  to  his  breth- 
ren in  the  camp.  In  the  55th  verse  of  this  chapter  it  is  said,  "And  when  Saul 
saw  David  go  forth  against  the  Philistine,  (Goliah)  he  said  to  Abner,  the  captain 
of  the  Host,  Abner,  whose  son  is  this  youth  1  And  Abner  said,  As  thy  soul  liveth, 
O  king,  I  cannot  tell.  And  the  king  said,  Inquire  thou  whose  son  the  stripling  is 
And  as  David  returned  'from  the  slaughter  of  the  Philistine,  Abner  took  him  and 
brought  him  before  Saul,  with  the  head  of  the  Philistine  in  his  hand ;  and  Saul 
said  imto  him,  Whose  son  art  thou,  thou  young  man?  And  David  answered,  "lam 
the  son  of  thy  servant  Jesse,  the  Bethlehcmite."  These  two  accounts  belie  each 
other,  because  each  of  them  supposes  Saul  and  David  not  lo  have  known  each  oth- 
er before.  This  book,  the  bible,  is  too  ridiculous  even  for  criticism* 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  113 

chapter  still  supposes  the  reader  not  to  know  any  thing  of  it,  for  it 
begins  by  saying,  ver.  1,  "Zedekiah  was  one  and  twenty  years  old 
when  he  began  to  reign,  and  he  reigned  eleven  years  in  Jerusalem,  and 
his  mothers  name  was  Hamutal,  the  daughter  of  Jeremiah  ofLibnah, 
(ver.  4.)  and  it  came  to  pass,  in  the  ninth  year  of  his  reign,  in  the 
tenth  month,  that  Nebuchadnezzar,  king  of  Babylon,  came,  he  and 
all  his  army, -against  Jerusalem,  and  pitched  against  it,  and  built 
forts  against  it,  &.c.  8tc." 

It  is  not  possible  that  any  one  man,  and  more  particularly  Jere- 
miah, could  have  been  the  writer  of  this  book.  The  errors  are 
such  as  could  not  have  been  committed  by  any  person  sitting  down 
to  compose  a  work.  Were  I,  or  any  other  man,  to  write  in  such 
a  disordered  manner,  nobody  would  read  what  was  written  ;  and 
every  body  would  suppose  that  the  writer  was  in  a  state  of  insan- 
ity. The  only  way,  therefore,  to  account  for  this  disorder,  is,  that 
the  book  is  a  medley' of  detached  unauthenticated  anecdotes,  put 
together  by  some  stupid  book-maker,  under  the  name  of  Jeremi- 
ah ;  because  many  ot'thcni  refer  to  him,  and  to  the  circumstances 
of  the  times  he  lived  in. 

Of  the  duplicity,  and  of  the  false  predictions  of  Jeremiah,  I  shall 
mention  two  instances,  and  then  proceed  to  review  the  remainder 
of  the  Bible. 

It  appears  from  the  38th  chapter,  that  when  Jeremiah  was  in 
prison,  Zedckiah  sent  for  him,  and  at  this  interview,  which  was 
private,  Jeremiah  pressed  it  strongly  on  Zedekiah  to  surrender 
himself  to  the  enemy.  ulf,  says  he,  (ver.  17,)  thouwili  assuredly 
go  forth  unto  the  king  of  Babylon's  princes,  then  thy  soul  shall  live, 
&.C."  Zedekiah  was  apprehensive  that  what  passed  at  this  cOn- 
ference  should  be  known  ;  and  he  said  to  Jeremiah,  (ver.  25,)  "If 
the  princes  (meaning  those  of  Judah)  hear  that  I  have  talked  with 
thee,  and  they  come  unto  thee  and  say  unto  thce,  Declare  unto  us 
now  what  thou  hast  said  unto  the  king  ;  hide  it  not  from  us,  and  we 
will  not  put  thee  to  death  ;  and  also  what  the  king  said  unto  thee; 
then  thou  shalt  say  unto  them,  I  presented  my  supplication  before 
the  king ;  that  he  would  not  cause  me  to  return  to  Jonathan's 
house  to  die  there.  Then  came  all  the  princes  unto  Jeremiah, 
and  asked  him,  and  he  told  them  according  to  all  the  words  the  king 
had  commanded."  Thus,  the  man  of  God,  as  he  is  called,  could 
tell  a  lie,  or  very  strongly  prevaricate,  when  he  supposed  it  would 
answer  his  purpose  ;  for  certainly  he  did  not  go  to  .Zedekiah  to 
make  his  supplication,  neither  did  he  make  it ;  he  went  because  he 
was  sent  for,  and  he  employed  that  opportunity  to  advise  Zedeki- 
ah to  surrender  himself  to  Nebuchadnezzar. 

In  the  34th  chapter,  is  a  prophecy  of  Jeremiah  to  Zedekiah,  in 
these  words,  (ver  2)  "Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Behold  I  v/ill  give  this 
city  into  the  hands  of  the  king  of  Babylon,  and  he  will  burn  it  with 
*fire  ;  and  thou  shalt  not  escape  out  of  his  hand,  but  that  thou  shalt 
surely  be  taken,  and  delivered  into  his  hand  ;  and  thine  eyes  shall 
10*' 


114  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

behold  the  eyes  of  the  king  of  Babylon,  and  he  shall  speak  with 
thee  mouth  to  mouth,  and  thou  shalt  go  to  Babylon.  Yet  hear  the 
word  of  the  Lord  ;  O  ZedeJdah,  king  ofJudah,  thus  saith  the  Lord, 
Thou  shall  not  die  by  the  sword,  but  ilwu  shalt  die  in  peace  ;  and 
with  the  burnings  of  thy  fathers,  the  former  kings  that  were  before 
thee,  so  shall  they  burn  odours  for  thee,  and  they  will  lament  thee,  say- 
ing, JVi,  Lord  ;  for  1  have  pronounced  the  word,  saith  the  Lord." 

Now,  instead  of  Zedekiah  beholding  the  eyes  of  the  king  of 
Babylon,  and  speaking  with  him  mouth  to  mouth,  and  dying  in 
peace,  and  with  the  burning  of  odours,  as  at  the  funeral  of  his 
fathers  (as  Jeremiah  had  declared  the  Lord  himself  had  pronounc- 
ed) the  reverse,  according  to  the  52d  chapter,  was  the  case  ;  it  is 
there  said,  (ver.  10)  "That  the  king  of  Babylon  slew  the  sons  of 
Zedekiah  before  his  eyes  :  then  he  put  out  the  eyes  of  Zedekiah, 
and  bound  him  in  chains,  and  carried  him  to  Babylon,  and  put 
him  in  prison  till  the  day  of  his  death."  What  then  can  we  say 
of  these  prophets,  but  that  they  are  impostors  and  liars  ? 

As  for  Jeremiah,  he  experienced  none  of  those  evils.  He  was 
taken  into  favour  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  who  gave  him  in  charge  to 
the  captain  of  the  guard,  (chap,  xxxix.  ver.  12)  "  Take  him, 
(said  he)  and  look  well  to  him,  and  do  him  no  harm  ;  but  do  un- 
to him  even  as  he  shall  say  unto  thee."  Jeremiah  joined  him- 
self afterwards  to  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  went  about  prophesying 
for  him  against  the  Egyptians,  who  had  marched  to  the  relief  of 
Jerusalem  while  it  was  besieged.  Thus  much  for  another  of  the 
lying  prophets,  and  the  book  that  bears  his  name. 

I  have  been  the  more  particular  in  treating  of  the  books  as- 
cribed to  Isaiah  and  Jeremiah,  because  those  two  are  spoken  of 
in  the  books  of  Kings  and  of  Chronicles,  which  the  others  are  not. 
The  remainder  of  the  books  ascribed  to  the  men  called  prophets, 
I  shall  not  trouble  myself  much  about  ;  but  take  them  collec- 
tively into  the  observations  I  shall  offer  on  the  character  of  the 
men  styled  prophets. 

In  the  former  part  of  the  Jlge  of  Reason,  I  have  said  that  the 
word  prophet  was  the  Bible-word  for  poet,  and  that  the  flights 
and  metaphors  of  the  Jewish  poets  have  been  foolishly  erected 
into  what  are  now  called  prophecies.  I  am  sufficiently  justified 
in  this  opinion,  not  only  because  the  books  called  the  prophecies 
are  written  in  poetical  language,  but  because  there  is  no  word 
in  the  Bible,  except  it  be  the  word  prophet,  that  describes  what 
we  mean  by  a  poet.  I  have  also  said,  that  the  word  signifies  a 
performer  upon  musical  instruments,  of  which  I  have  given  some 
instances  ;  such  as  that  of  a  company  of  prophets  prophesying 
with  psalteries,  with  tabrets,  with  pipes,  with  harps,  &.c.  and  that 
Saul  prophesied  with  them,  1  Sam.  chap.  x.  ver.  5.  It  appears 
from  this  passage,  and  from  other  parts  in  the  book  of  Samuel, 
that  the  word  prophet  was  confined  to  signify  poetry  and  music  ; 
for  the  person  who  was  supposed  to  have  a  visionary  insight  into 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  115 

concealed  things,  was  not  a  prophet  but  a  seer,*  (1  Sam.  chap. 
ix.  ver.  9  ;)  and  it  was  not  till  after  the  word  seer  went  out  of  use 
(which  most  probably  was  when  Saul  banished  those  he  called 
wizards)  that  the  profession  of  the  seer,  or  the  art  of  seeing,  be- 
came incorporated  into  the  word  prophet. 

According  to  the  modern  meaning  of  the  word  prophet  and 
prophesying,  it  signifies  foretelling  events  to  a  great  distance  of 
time  ;  and  it  became  necessary  to  the  inventors  of  the  gospel  to 
give  it  this  latitude  of  meaning,  in  order  to  apply  or  to  stretch 
what  they  call  the  prophecies  of  the  Old  Testament,  to  the  times 
of  the  New  ;  but  according  to  the  Old  Testament,  the  prophe- 
sying of  the  seer,  and  afterwards  of  the  prophet,  so  far  as  the 
meaning  of  the  word  seer  was  incorporated  into  that  of  pro- 
phet, had  reference  only  to  things  of  the  time  then  passing,  or 
very  closely  connected  with  it ;  such  as  the  event  of  a  battle 
they  were  going  to  engage  in,  or  of  a  journey,  or  of  any  enter- 
prise they  were  going  to  undertake,  or  of  any  circumstance  then 
pending,  or  of  any  difficulty  they  were  then  in  ;  all  of  which 
had  immediate  reference  to  themselves  (as  in  the  case  already 
mentioned  of  Aha-z  and  Isaiah  with  respect  to  the  expression, 
Behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive  and  bear  a  sow,)  and  not  to  any  dis- 
tant future  time.  It  was  that  kind  of  prophesying  that  corres- 
ponds to  what  we  call  fortune-telling  ;  such  as  casting  nativities, 
predicting  riches,  fortunate  or  unfortunate  marriages,  conjuring 
for  lost  goods,  &c.  ;  and  it  is  the  fraud  of  the  Christian  church, 
not  that  of  the  Jews  ;  and  the  ignorance  and  the  superstition  of 
modern,  not  that  of  ancient  times,  that  elevated  those  poetical — 
musical — conjuring — dreaming — stroling  gentry,  into  tlie  rank 
they  have  since  had. 

But,  besides  this  general  character  of  all  the  prophets,  they 
had  also  a  particular  character.  They  were  in  parties,  and  they 
prophesied  for  or  against,  according  to  the  party  they  were  with  ; 
as  the  poetical  and  political  writers  of  the  present  day  write  in 
defence  of  the  party  they  associate  with  against  the  other. 

After  the  Jews  were  divided  into  two  nations,  that  of  Judah 
and  that  of  Israel,  each  party  had  its  prophets,  who  abused  arid 
accused  each  other  of  being  false  prophets,  lying  prophets,  im- 
postors, &c. 

The  prophets  oT  the  party  of  Judah  prophesied  against  the 
prophets  of  the  party  of  Israel ;  and  those  of  the  party  of  Israel 
against  those  of  Judah.  This  party-prophesying  showed  itself 
immediately  on  the  separation  under  the  first  two  rival  kings  Re- 
hoboam  and  Jeroboam.  The  prophet  that  cursed,  or  prophesi- 
ed, against  the  altar  that  Jeroboam  had  built  in  Bethel,  was  of 
the  party  of  Judah,  where  Rehoboam  was  king  ;  and  he  was 

*  I  know  not  what  is  the  Hebrew  word  that  corresponds  to  the  word  seer  in  Eng- 
lish ;  but  I  ol>serve  it  is  translated  into  French  by  La  Voyant,  from  the  verb  voir  to 
tec  ;  and  which  means  the  person  who  sees,  or  the  seer. 


11.6  -  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

way-laid,  on  his  return  home,  by  a  prophet  of  the  party  of  Israel, 
who  said  unto  him,  (1  Kings,  chap,  x.)  "  Jirt  thou  the  man  of 
God  that  came  from  Jiidah  ?  and  he  said  I  am."  Then  the  pro- 
phet of  the  party  of  Israel  said  to  him,  "  /  am  a  prophet  also,  as 
thou  arty  (signifying  of  Judah)  and  an  angel  spake  unto  me  by  tJie 
word  of  the  Lord,  saying,  Bring  him  back  with  thee  unto  thine  house, 
that  he  may  eat  bread  and  drink  water  :  but  (says  the  .18th  verse) 
he  lied  unto  him"  This  event,  however,  according  to  the  story, 
is,  that  the  prophet  of  Judah  never  got  back  to  Judah,  for  he 
was  found  dead  on  the  road,  by  the  contrivance  of  the  prophet 
of  Israel,  who,  no  doubt,  was  called  a  true  prophet  by  his  own 
party,  and  the  prophet  of  Judah  a  lying  prophet. 

In  the  third  chapter  of  the  second  of  Kings,  a  story  is  related 
of  prophesying  or  conjuring,  that  shows,  in  several  particulars, 
the  character  of  a  prophet.  Jehoshaphat,  king  of  Judah,  and 
Joram,  king  of  Israel,  had  fo?  a  while  ceased  their  party  animos- 
ity, and  entered  into  an  alliance  ;  and  these  two,  together  with 
the  king  of  Edom,  engaged  in  a  war  against  the  king  of  Moab. 
After  uniting  and  marching  their  armies,  the  story  says,  they 
were  in  great  distress  for  water,  upon  which  Jehoshaphat  said, 
"  Is  there  not  here  a  prophet  of  the  Lord,  that  we  may  inquire  of 
the  Lord  by  him  ?  and  one  of  the  servants  of  the  king  -of  Israel 
said,  here  is  Elisha.  (Elisha  was  of  the  party  of  Judah.)  And 
Jehoshaphat,  the  king  of  Judah,  said,  The  word  of  the  Lord  is  with 
him."  The  story  then  says,  that  these  three  kings  went  down 
to  Elisha  ;  and  when  Elisha  (who,  as  I  have  said,  was  a  Judah- 
nrite  prophet)  saw  the  king  of  Israel,  he  said  unto  him,  "  What 
have  I  to  do  with  thee,  get  thee  to  the  prophets  of  thy  father  and  the 

ahcts  of  thy  mother.  Nay  but,  said  the  king  of  Israel,  the  Lord 
called  these  three  kings  together,  to  dctircr  them  into  the  hand 
of  the  king  of  Moab"  (meaning  because  of  the  distress  they  were 
in  for  water  ;)  upon  which  Elisha  said,  "  Jis  the  Lord  of  hosts  liv- 
eth,  before  whom  I  stand,  surely,  were  it  not  tliat  I  regard  Jehosha- 
phat, king  of  Judah,  I  would  not  look  towards  thee,  nor  see  thee. 
Here  is  all  the  venom  and  vulgarity  of  a  party  prophet. — We 
have  now  to  see  tne  performance,  or  manner  of  prophesying. 

Ver.  15.  "Bring  me,  said  Elisha,  a  minstrel  :  and  it  came  to 
pass,  when  the  minstrel  played,  that  the  hand  of  the  Lord  came  upon 
him."  Here  is  the  farce  of  the  conjuror.  Now  for  the  prophe- 
cy :  "  Jind  Elisha  said,  (singing  most  probably  to  the  feme  he 
was  playing)  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  Make  this  valley  full  of  ditches  ;" 
which  was  just  telling  them  what  every  countryman  could  have 
told  them,  without  either  iiddle  or  farce,  that  the  way  to  get 
water  was  to  dig  for  it. 

But  as  every  conjuror  is  not  famous  alike  for  the  same  thing, 
so  neither  were  those  prophets  ;  for  though  all  of  them,  at  least 
those  I  have  spoken  of,  were  famous  for  lying,  some  of  them  ex- 
celled in  cursing.  Elisha,  whom  I  have  just  mentioned,  was  a 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  117 

chief  in  this  branch  of  prophesying  ;  it  was  he  that  cursed  the 
forty-two  children  in  the  name  of  the  Lord,  whom  the  two  she- 
bears  came  and  devoured.  We  are  to  suppose  that  those  chil- 
dren were  of  the  party  of  Israel  ;  but  as  those  who  will  curse 
will  lie,  there  is  just  as  much  credit  to  be  given  to  this  story  of 
Elisha's  two  she-bears  as  there  is  to  that  of  the  Dragon  of  Wan- 
tley,  of  whom  it  is  said  : — 

Poor  children  three  devoured  he, 
That  could  not  with  him  grapple  ; 
And  at  one  sup  he  eat  them  up, 
As  a  man  would  eat  an  apple. 

There  was  another  description  of  men  called  prophets,  that  amus- 
ed themselves  with  dreams  and  visions  ;  but  whether  by  night 
or  by  day,  we  know  not.  These,  if  they  were  not  quite  harmless, 
were  but  little  mischievous.  Of  this  class  are 

Ezekiel  and  Daniel  ;  and  the  first  question  upon  those  books, 
as  upon  all  the  others,  is,  are  they  genuine  ?  that  is,  were  they 
written  by  Ezekiel  and  Daniel  ? 

Of  this  there  is  no  proof;  but  so  far  as  my  own  opinion  goes, 
I  am  more  inclined  to  believe  they  were,  than  that  they  were  not. 
My  reasons  for  this  opinion  are  as  follow  :  First,  Becaue  those 
books  do  not  contain  internal  evidence  to  prove  they  were  not 
written  by  Ezekiel  and  Daniel,  as  the  books  ascribed  to  Moses, 
Joshua,  Samuel,  &,c.  Sec.  prov.e  they  were  not  written  by  Moses, 
Joshua,  Samuel,  £.c.  « 

Secondly,  Because  they  were  not  written  till  after  the  Baby- 
lonish captivity  began  ;  and  there  is  good  reason  to  believe,  that 
not  any  book  in  the  Bible  was  written  before  that  period  :  at 
least,  it  is  proveable,  from  the  books  themselves,  as  I  have  al- 
rea<Jy  shown,  that  they  were  not  written  till  after  the  commence- 
ment of  the  Jewish  monarchy. 

Thirdly,  Because  the  manner  in  which  the  books  ascribed  to 
Ezekiel  and  Daniel  are  written,  agrees  with  the  condition  Ihese 
men  were  in  at  the  time  of  writing  them. 

Had  the  numerous  commentators  and  priests,  who  have  fool- 
ishly employed  or  wasted  their  time  in  pretending  to  expound 
and  unriddle  those  books,  been  carried  in  captivity,  as  Ezekiel 
and  Daniel  were,  it  would  have  greatly  improved  their  intellects, 
in  comprehending  the  reason  for  this  mode  of  writing,  and  have 
saved  them  the  trouble  of  racking  their  invention,  as  they  have 
done,  to  no  purpose  ;  for  they  would  have  found  that  themselves 
would  be  obliged  to  write  whatever  they  had  to  write,  re- 
specting their  own  affairs,  or  those  of  their  friends,  or  of  their 
country,  in  a  concealed  manner,  as  those  men  have  done. 

These  two  books  differ  from  all  the  rest  5  for  it  is  only  these 
that  are  filled  with  accounts  of  dreams  and  visions  ;  and  this  dif- 


118  THE    AGE   OP   REASON. 

ference  arose  from  the  situation  the  writers  were  in  as  prisoners 
of  war,  or  prisoners  of  state,  in  a  foreign  country,  which  obliged 
them  to  convey  even  the  most  trifling  information  to  each  other, 
and  all  their  political  projects  or  opinions,  in  obscure  and  met- 
aphorical terms.  They  pretend  to  have  dreamed  dreams,  and 
seen  visions,  because  it  was  unsafe  for  them  to  speak  facts  or 
plain  language.  We  ought,  however,  to  suppose,  that  the  per- 
sons to  whom  they  wrote  understood  what  they  meant,  and  that 
it  was  not  intended  any  body  else  should.  But  these  busy  com- 
mentators and  priests  have  been  puzzling  their  wits  to  find  out 
what  it  was  not  intended  they  should  know,  and  with  which  they 
hav.e  nothing  to  do. 

Ezekiel  and  Daniel  were  carried  prisoners  to  Babylon,  under 
the  first  captivity,  in  the  time  of  Jehoiakim,  nine  years  before  the 
second  captivity  in  the  time  of  Zedekiah.  The  Jews  were  then 
still  numerous,  and  had  considerable  force  at  Jerusalem  ;  and  as 
it  is  natural  to  suppose  that  men,  in  the  situation  of  Ezekiel  and 
Daniel,  would  be  meditating  the  recovery  of  their  country,  and 
their  own  deliverance,  it  is  reasonable  to  suppose,  that  the  ac- 
counts of  dreams  and  visions,  with  which  these  books  are  filled, 
are  no  other  than  a  disguised  mode  of  correspondence,  to  facilitate 
those  objects :  it  served  them  as  a  cypher,  or  secret  alphabet. 
If  they  are  not  this,  they  are  tales,  reveries,  and  nonsense  ;  or  at 
least,  a  fanciful  way  of  wearing  off  the  we arisomeness  of  captivi- 
ty ;  but  the  presumption  is,  they  were  the  former. 

Ezekiel  begins  his  books  by  speaking  of  a  vision  of  cherubims, 
and  of  a  wheel  within  a  wheel,  which  he  says  he  saw  by  the  river 
Chebar,  in  the  land  of  his  captivity.  Is  it  not  reasonable  to  sup- 
pose, that  by  the  cherubims  he  meant  tho  temple  at  Jerusalem, 
where  they  had  figures  of  cherubims  ?  and  by  a  wheel  within  a 
wheel,  (which,  as  a  figure,  has  always  been  understood  to  signify 
political  contrivance)  the  project  or  means  of  recovering  Jerusa- 
lem ?  In  the  latter  part  of  this  book,  he  supposes  himself  trans- 
ported to  Jerusalem,  and  into  the  temple  :  and  he  refers  back  to  the 
vision  on  the  river  Chebar,  and  says,  (chap,  xliti.  ver.  3)  that  this 
last  vision  was  like  the  vision  on  the  river  Chebar  ;  which  indi- 
cates, that  those  pretended  dreams  and  visions  had  for  their  object 
the  recovery  of  Jerusalem,  and  nothing  further. 

As  to  the  romantic  interpretations  and  applications,  wild  as  tho 
dreams  and  visions  they  undertake  to  explain,  which  commentators 
and  priests  have  made  of  those  books,  that  of  converting  them 
into  things  which  they  call  prophecies,  and'making  them  bend  to 
times  and  circumstances,  as  far  remote  even  as  the  present  day,  it 
shows  the  fraud  or  the  extreme  folly  to  which  credulity  or  priest- 
craft can  go. 

Scarcely  any  thing  can  be  more  absurd,  than  to  suppose  that 
men  situated  as  Ezekiel  and  Daniel  were,  whose  country  was 
over-run,  and  in  the  possession  of  the  enemy,  all  their  friends  and 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON,  119 

relations  in  captivity  abroad,  or  in  slavery  at  home,  or  massacred, 
or  in  continual  danger  of  it ;  scarcely  any  thing,  I  say,  can  be 
more  absurd,  than  to  suppose  that  such  men  should  find  nothing 
to  do  but  that  of  employing  their  time  and  their  thoughts  ab'out 
what  was  to  happen  to  other  nations  a  thousand  or  two  thousand 
years  after  they  were  dead  ;  at  the  same  time,  nothing  is  more 
natural,  than  that  they  should  meditate  the  recovery  of  Jerusalem, 
and  their  own  deliverance  ;  and  that  this  was  the  sole  object  of* 
all  the  obscure  and  apparently  frantic  writings  contained  in  those 
books. 

In  this  sense,  the  mode  of  writing  used  in  those  two  books  be- 
ing forced  by  necessity,  and  not  adopted  by  choice,  is  not  irration- 
al ;  but  if  we  are  to  use  the  books  as  prophecies,  they  are  false. 
In  the  29th  chapter  of  Ezekiel,  speaking  of  Egypt,  it  is  said,  (ver. 
11,)  No  foot  of  man  should  pass  through  it,  nor  foot  of  beast  should 
pass  through  it ;  neither  shall  it  be  inhabited  for  forty  years."  This 
is  what  never  came  to  pass,  and  consequently  it  is  false,  as  all  the 
books  I  have  already  reviewed  are.  I  here  close  this  part  of  the 
subject. 

In  the  former  part  of  the  Jlge,  of  Reason,  I  have  spoken  of  Jo- 
nah, and  of  the  story  of  him  and  the  whale.  A  fit  story  for  ridi- 
cule, if  it  was  written  to  be  believed  ;  or  of  laughter,  if  it  was  in- 
tended to  try  what  credulity  could  swallow  ;  for  if  it  could  swallow 
Jonah  and  the  whale,  it  could  swallow  any  thing. 

But,  as  is  already  shown  in  the  observations  on  the  book  of 
Job,  and  of  Proverbs,  it  is  not  always  certain  which  of  the  books 
in  the  Bible  are  originally  Hebrew  or  only  translations  from  the 
books  of  the  Gentiles  into  Hebrew  ;  and  as  the  book  of  Jonah, 
so  far  from  treating  of  the  affairs  of  the  Jews,  says  nothing  upon 
that  subject,  but  treats  altogether  of  the  Gentiles,  it  is  more 
probable  that  it  is  a  book  of  the  Gentiles  than  of  the  Jews ;  and 
that  it  has  been  written  as  a  fable,  to  expose  the  nonsense  and  sat- 
irise the  vicious  and  malignant  character  of  a  Bible  prophet,  or  a 
predicting  priest. 

Jonah  is  represented,  first,  as  a  disobedient  prophet,  running 
away  from  his  mission,  and  taking  shelter  aboard  a  vessel  of  the 
Gentiles,  bound  from  Joppa  to  Tarshish  ;  as  if  he  ignorantly  sup- 
posed, by  such  a  paltry  contrivance,  he  could  hide  himself  where 
God  could  not  find  him.  The  vessel  is  overtaken  by  a  storm  at 
sea  ;  and  the  mariners,  all  of  whom  are  Gentiles,  believing  it  to 
be  a  judgment,  on  account  of  some  one  on  board  who  had  com- 
mitted a  crime,  agreed  to  cast  lots,  to  discover  the  offender  ;  and 
the  lot  fell  upon  Jonah.  But,  before  this,  they  had  cast  all  their 
wares  and  merchandize  overboard,  to  lighten  the  vessel,  while 
Jonah,  like  a  stupid  fellow,  was  fast  asleep  in  the  hold. 

After  the  lot  had  designated  Jonah  to  be  the  offender,  they 
questioned  him  to  know  who  and  what  he  was  ;  and  he  told  them 
he  was  an  Hebrew  ;  and  the  story  implies,  that  he  confessed  him- 


120  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

self  to  be  guilty.  But  tfiese  Gentiles,  instead  of  sacrificing  him 
at  once,  without  pity  or  mercy,  as  a  -company  of  Bible  prophets 
or  priests  would  have  done  by  a  Gentile  in  the  same  case,  and  as 
it  is  related  Samuel  had  done  by  Agag,  and  Moses  by  the  wo- 
men and  children  ;  they  endeavoured  to  save  him,  though  at  the 
risk  of  their  own  lives;  for  the  account  says-,  " Nevertheless, 
(that  is,  though  Jonah  was  a  Jew,  and  a  foreigner,  and  the  cause 
of  all  their  misfortunes,  and  the  loss  of  their  cargo)  the  men  row- 
ed hard  to  bring  the  boat  to  land  ;  but  they  could  not,  for  the  sea 
wrought,  and  was  tempestuous  against  them."  Still,  however,  they 
were  unwilling  to  put  the  fate  of  the  lot  into  execution  ;  and  they 
cried  (says  the  account)  unto  the  Lord,  saying,  "  We  beseech 
thee,  O  Lord,  let  us  not  perish  for  this  man's  life,  and  lay  not  upon 
us  innocent  blood  ;  for  ikon,  O  Lord,  hast  done  as  it  pleased  thee.n 
Meaning  thereby,  that  they  did  not  presume  to  judge  Jonah  guil- 
ty, since  that  he  might  be  innocent  ;  but  that  they  considered  the 
lot  that  had  fallen  upon  him  as  a  decree  of  God,  or  as  it  pleased 
God.  The  address  of  this  prayer  shows  that  the  Gentiles  wor- 
shipped one  Supreme  Being,  and  that  they  were  not  idolaters,  as 
the  Jews  represented  them  to  be.  But  the  storm  still  continuing, 
and  the  danger  increasing,  they  put  the  fate  of  the  lot  into  exe- 
cution, and  cast  Jonah  into  the  sea  ;  where,  according  to  the  sto- 
ry, a  great  fish  swallowed  him  up  whole  and  alive. 

We  have  now  to  consider  Jonah  securely  housed  from  the  storm 
in  the  fish's  belly.  Here  we  are  told  that  he  prayed ;  but  the 
prayer  is  a  made  up  prayer,  taken  from  various  parts  of  the 
Psalms,  without  any  connection  or  consistency,  and  adapted  to  the 
distress,  but  not  at  all  to  the  condition,  that  Jonah  was  in.  It  is 
such  a  prayer  as  a  Gentile,  who  might  know  something  of  the 
Psalms,  could  copy  out  for  him.  This  circumstance  alone,  were 
there  no  other,  is  sufficient  to  indicate  that  the  whole  is  a  made-up 
story.  The  prayer,  however,  is  supposed  to  have  answered  the 
purpose,  and  the  story  goes  on  (taking  up  at  the  same  time  the 
cant  language  of  a  Bible  prophet,)  saying,  "The  Lord  spake  unto 
the  fish,  and  it  vomited  out  Jonah  upon  dry  land." 

Jonah  then  received  a  second  mission  to  Ninevah,  with  which 
he  sets  out ;  and  we  have  now  to  consider  him  as  a  preacher.  The 
distress  he  is  represented  to  have  suffered,  the  remembrance  of  his 
own  disobedience  as  the  cause  of  it,  and  the  miraculous  escape  he 
is  supposed  to  have  had,  were  sufficient,  one  would  conceive,  to 
have  impressed  him  with  sympathy  and  benevolence  in  the  execu- 
tion of  his  mission  ;  but,  instead  of  this,  he  enters  the  city  with 
denunciation  and  malediction  in  his  mouth,  crying, "  Yet  forty  days, 
and  Ninevah  shall  be  overthrow*." 

We  have  now  to  consider  this  supposed  missionary  in  the  last 
act  of  his  mission  ;  and  here  it  is  that  the  malevolent  spirit  of  a 
Bible-prophet,  or  of  a  predicting  priest,  appears  in  all  the  black- 
ness of  character,  that  men  ascribe  to  the  being  they  call  the  devil. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  121 

Having  puolished  his  predictions,  he  withdrew,  says  the  story, 
to  the  east  side  of  the  city.  But  for  what  ?  not  to  contemplate,  in 
retirement,  the  mercy  of  his  Creator  to  himself,  or  to  others,  but 
to  wait,  with  malignant  impatience,  the  destruction  of  Ninevah. 
It  came  to  pass,  however,  as  the  story  relates,  that  the  Ninevites 
reformed,  and  that  God,  according  to  the  Bible  phrase,  repented 
him  of  the  evil  he  had  said  he  would  do  unto  them,  and  did  it  not. 
This,  saith  the  first  verse  of  the  last  chapter,  displeased  Jonah  ex- 
ceedingly, and  he  was  very  angry.  His  obdurate  heart  would  rath- 
er that  all  Ninevah  should  be  destroyed,  and  every  soul,  young 
and  old,  perish  in  its  ruins,  than  that  his  prediction  should  not  be 
fulfilled.  To  expose  the  character  of  a  prophet  still  more,  a 
gourd  is  made  to  grow  up  in  the  night,  that  promiseth  him  an 
agreeable  shelter  from  the  heat  of  the  sun,  in  the  place  to  which 
he  is  retired  ;  and  the  next  morning  it  dies. 

Here  the  rage  of  the  prophet  becomes  excessive,  and  he  is 
ready  to  destroy  himself.  "It  is  better,  said  he,  for  me  to  die  than 
to  live."  This  brings  on  a  supposed  expostulation  between  the 
Almighty  and  the  prophet  ;  in  which  the  former  says,  "Doest  thou 
well  to  be  angry  for  the  gourd  ?  And  Jonah  said,  I  do  well  to  be 
angry  even  unto  death  ;  Then  said  the  Lord,  Thou  hast  had  pity  on 
the  gourd,  for  which  thou  hast  not  laboured  neither  madest  it  to  grow, 
which  came  up  in  a  night,  and  perished  in  a  night ;  and  should  not 
I  spare  Ninevah,  that  great  city,  in  which  are  more  than  three-score 
thousand  persons,  that  cannot  discern  between  their  right  hand  and 
their  left  ?" 

Here  is  both  the  winding  up  of  the  satire,  and  the  moral  of  the 
fable.  As  a  satire,  it  strikes  against  the  character  of  all  the  Bible- 
prophets,  and  against  all  the  indiscriminate  judgments  upon  men, 
women,  and  children,  with  which  this  lying  book,  the  Bible,  is 
crowded  ;  such  as  Noah's  flood,  the  destruction  of  the  cities  of 
Sodom  and  Gomorrah,  the  extirpation  of  the  Canaanites,  even  to 
sucking  infants,  and  women  with  child,  because  the  same  reflec- 
tion, that  there  are  more  than  three-score  thousand  persons  that  can- 
not discern  between  their  right  hand  and  their  left,  meaning  young 
children,  applies  to  all  their  cases.  It  satirizes  also  the  suppos- 
ed partiality  of  the  Creator  for  one  nation  more  than  for  another. 

As  a  moral,  it  preaches  against  the  malevolent  spirit  of  predic- 
tion ;  for  as  certainly  as  a  man  predicts  ill,  he  becomes  inclined 
to  wish  it.  The  pride  of  having  his  judgment  right,  hardens  his 
heart,  till  at  last  he  beholds  with  satisfaction,  or  sees  with  disap- 
pointment, the  accomplishment  or  the  failure  of  his  predictions 
This  book  ends  with  the  same  kind  of  strong  and  well-directed 
point  against  prophets,  prophecies,  and  indiscriminate  judgments, 
as  the  chapter  that  Benjamin  Franklin  made  for  the  Bible,  about 
Abraham  and  the  stranger,  ends  against  the  intolerant  spirit  of  re- 
ligious persecution.  Thus  much  for  the  book  of  Jonah. 

Of  the  poetical  parts  of  the  Bible,  that  are  called  prophecies,  I 


122  THE    AGE    OF   REASON". 

have  spoken  in  the  former  part  of  the  Jlge  of  Reason,  and  already 
in  this  :  where  I  have  said  that  the  word  prophet  is  the  Bible  word 
for  puet ;  and  that  the  flights  and  metaphors  of  those  poets,  many 
of  which  have  become  obscure  by  the  lapse  of  time  and  the  change 
of  circumstances,  have  been  ridiculously  erected  into  things  call- 
ed prophecies  and  applied  to  purposes  the  writers  never  thought 
of.  When  a  priest  quotes  any  of  those  passages,  he  unriddles  it 
agreeably  to  his  own  views,  and  imposes  that  explanation  upon 
his  congregation  as  the  meaning  of  the  writer.  The  whore  of 
Babylon  has  been  the  common  whore  of  all  the  priests,  and  each 
has  accused  the  other  of  keeping  the  strumpet  ;  so  well  do  they 
agree  in  their  explanations. 

There  now  remain  only  a  few  books,  which  they  call  the  books 
of  the  lesser  prophets  ;  and  as  I  have  already  shown  that  the  great- 
er are  impostors,  it  would  be  cowardice  to  disturb  the  repose  of 
the  little  ones  Let  them  sleep  then,  in  the  arms  of  their  nurses, 
the  priests,  and  both  be  forgotten  together. 

I  have  now  gone  through  the  Bible,  as  a  man  would  go  through 
a  wood  with  an  axe  on  his  shoulder,  and  fell  trees.  Here  they  lie ; 
and  the  priests,  if  they  can,  may  replant  them.  They  may,  per- 
haps, stick  them  in  the  ground,  but  they  will  never  make  them 
grow. — I  pass  on  to  the  books  of  the  New  Testament. 

THE  NEW  TESTAMEJVT. 

The  New  Testament,  they  tell  us,  is  founded  upon  the  proph- 
ecies, of  the  Old  ;  if  so,  it  must  follow  the  fate  of  its  foundation. 

As  it  is  nothing  extraordinary  that  a  woman  should  be  with  child 
before  she  was  married,  and  that  the  son  she  might  bring  forth 
should  be  executed,  even  unjustly  ;  I  see  no  reason  for  not  believ- 
ing that  such  a  woman  as  Mary,  and  such  a  man  as  Joseph,  and 
Jesus,  existed  ;  their  mere  existence  is  a  matter  of  indifference, 
about  which  there  is  no  ground,  either  to  believe,  or  to  disbelieve, 
and  which  comes  under  the  common  head  of,  //  may  be  so  ;  and 
what  then  ?  The  probability,  however,  is,  that  there  were  such 
persons,  or  at  least  such  as  resembled  them  in  part  of  the  circum- 
stances, because  almost  all  romantic  stories  have  been  suggested 
•by  some  actual  circumstance  ;  as  the  adventures  of  Robinson 
Crusoe,  not  a  word  of  which  is  true,  were  suggested  by  the  case  of 
Alexander  Selkirk. 

It  is  not  then  the  existence,  or  non-existence,  of  the  persons 
that  I  trouble  myself  about ;  it  is  the  fable  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  told 
in  the  New  Testament,  and  the  wild  and  visionary  doctrine  raised 
thereon,  against  which  I  contend.  The  story,  taking  it  as  it  is 
•told,  is  blasphemously  obscene.  It  gives  an  account  of  a  young 
woman  engaged  to  be  married,  and  while  under  this  engagement, 
is,  to  speak  plain  language,  debauched  by  a  ghost,  under  the 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  123 

impious  pretence,  (Luke,  chap.  i.  ver.  35,)  that  "the  Holy  Ghost 
shall  come  nponthee;  and  the  power  of  the  Highest  shall  overshadow 
thee."  Notwithstanding  which,  Joseph  afterwards  marries  her, 
cohabits  with  her  as  his  wife,  and  in  his  turn  rivals  the  ghost. 
This  is  putting  the  story  into  intelligible  language  ;  and  when  told 
in  this  manner,  there  is  not  a  priest  but  must  be  ashamed  to  own 
it* 

Obscenity  in  matters  of  faith,  however  wrapped  up,  is  always  a 
token  of  fable  and  imposture  ;  for  it  is  necessary  to  our  serious  be- 
lief in  God,  that  we  do  not  connect  it  with  stories  that  run,  as  this 
does,  into  ludicrous  interpretations.  This  story  is,  upon  the  face 
of  it,  the  same  kind  of  story  as  that  of  Jupiter  and  Leda,  or  Jupiter 
and  Europa,  or  any  of  the  amorous  adventures  of  Jupiter  ;  and 
shows,  as  is  already  stated  in  the  former  part  of  the  Jlge  of  Reason, 
that  the  Christian  faith  is  built  upon  the  heathen  mythology. 

As  the  historical  parts  of  the  New  Testament,  so  far  as  concerns 
Jesus  Christ,  are  confined  to  a  very  short  space  of  time,  less  than 
two  years,  and  all  within  the  same  country,  and  nearly  to  the  same 
spot,  the  discordance  of  time,  place,  and  circumstance,  which  de- 
tects the  fallacy  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  proves 
them  to  be  impositions,  cannot  be  expected  to  be  found  here  in  the 
same  abundance.  The  New  Testament,  compared  with  the  Old, 
is  like  a  farce  of  one  act,  in  which  there  is  not  room  for  very 
numerous  violations  of  the  unities.  There  are,  however,  some 
glaring  contradictions,  which,  exclusive  of  the  fallacy  of  the  pre- 
tended prophecies,  are  sufficient  to  show  the  story  of  Jesus  Christ 
to  be  false. 

I  lay  it  down  as  a  position  which  cannot  be  controverted,  first, 
that  the  agreement  of  all  the  parts  of  a  story  does  not  prove  that 
story  to  be  true,  because  the  parts  may  agree,  and  the  whole  may 
be  false  ;  secondly,  that  the  disagreement  of  the  parts  of  a  story 
proves  the  whole  cannot  be  true.  The  agreement  does  not  prove 
truth,  but  the  disagreement  proves  falsehood  positively. 

The  history  of  Jesus  Christ  is  contained  in  the  four  books  as- 
cribed to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John.  The  first  chapter  of 
Matthew  begins  with  giving  a  genealogy  of  Jesus  Christ ;  and  in 
the  third  chapter  of  Luke,  there  is  also  given  a  genealogy  of  Je- 
sus Christ.  Did  these  two  agree,  it  would  not  prove  the  geneal- 
ogy to  be  true,  because  it  might,  nevertheless,  be  a  fabrication  ; 
but  as  they  contradict  each  other  in  every  particular,  it  proves 
falsehood  absolutely.  If  Matthew  speaks  truth, Luke  speaks  false- 
hood ;  and  if  Luke  speaks  truth,  Matthew  speaks  falsehood  ;  and 
as  there  is  no  authority  for  believing  one  more  than  the  other, 
there  is  no  authority  for  believing  either  ;  and  if  they  Cannot 
be  believed  even  in  the  very  first  thing  they  say,  and  set  out  to 
prove,  they  are  not  entitled  to  be  believed  in  any  thing  they  say  af- 

*  Mary,  'he  supposed  virgin  mother  of  Jesus,  had  several  other  children,  sons  and 
daughters.  See  Mat.  chap.  xiii.  ver.  55,  56. 


124  THE    AGE    OF   REASON. 

terwards.  Truth  is  an  uniform  thing  ;  and  as  to  inspiration  and 
revelation,  were  we  to  admit  it,  it  is  impossible  to  suppose  it  can 
be  contradictory.  Either  then  the  men  called  apostles  were  im- 
postors, or  the  books  ascribed  to  them  have  been  written  by  other 
persons,  and  fathered  upon  them,  as  is  the  case  in  the  Old  Test- 
ament. 

The  book  of  Matthew  gives,  chap.  i.  ver.  6,  a  genealogy  by 
name  from  David,  up  through  Joseph,  the  husband  of  Mary,  to 
Christ  ;  and  makes  there  to  be  twenty-eight  generations.  The 
book  of  Luke  gives  also  a  genealogy  by  name  from  Christ,  through 
Joseph,  the  husband  of  Mary,  down  to  David,  and  makes  there 
to  be  forty-three  generations  ;  besides  which,  there  are  only  the 
two  names  of  David  and  Joseph  that  are  alike  in  the  two  lists.  I 
here  insert  both  geneological  lists,  and  for  the  sake  of  perspicuity 
and  comparison  have  placed  them  both  in  the  same  direction,  that 
is,  from  Joseph  down  to  David. 


Genealogy,  according  toMatthew. 

Genealogy  ,  according  to  Luke. 

Christ 

Christ 

2  Joseph 

2  Joseph 

3  Jacob 

3Heli 

4  Matthan 

4  Matthat 

5  Eleazer 

5  Levi 

6  Eliud 

6  Melchi 

7  Achim 

7  Janna                • 

8  Sadoc 

8  Joseph 

9  Azor 

9  Mattathias 

10  E  Hakim 

10  Amos 

11  Abiud 

11  Naum 

12  Zorobabel 

12  Esli 

13  Salathiel 

13  Nagge 

14  Jechonias 

14  Maath 

15  Josias 

15  Mattathias 

16  Amon 

16  Semei 

17  Manasses 

17  Joseph 

18  Ezekias 

18  Juda 

19  Achaz 

19  Joanna 

20  Joatham 

20  Rhesa 

21   Ozias 

21  Zorobabel 

22  Joram 

22  Salathiel 

23  Josaphat 

23  Neri 

24  Asa 

24  Melchi 

25  Abia 

25  Addi 

•26  Roboam 

26  Cosam 

27  Solomon 

27  Elmodam 

28  David* 

28  Er 

*  From  the  birth  of  David  to  the  birth  of  Christ  is  upwards  of  1060  years :  and  a* 
the  life-time  of  Christ  is  not  included,  there  are  but  27  full  generations.    To  find, 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 


125 


Genealogy,  according  toMatthew. 


Genealogy  j  according  to  Luke 

29  Jose 

30  Eliezer 

31  Jorim 

32  Matthat 

33  Levi 

34  Simeon 

35  Juda 

36  Joseph 

37  Jonan 

38  Elakim 

39  Melea 

40  Menan 

41  Mattatha 

42  Nathan 

43  David 


Now,  if  these  men,  Matthew  and  Luke,  set  out  with  a  falsehood 
between  them,  (as  these  two  accounts  show  they  do)  in  the  very 
commencement  of  their  history  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  of  whom,  and 
of  what  he  was,  what  authority  (as  I  have  before  asked)  is  there 
left  for  believing  the  strange  things  they  tell  us  afterwards  ?  If 
they  cannot  be  believed  in  their  account  of  his  natural  genealogy, 
how  are  we  to  believe  them,  when  they  tell  us,  he  was  the  son  of 
God,  begotten  by  a  ghost ;  and  that  an  angel  announced  this  in 
secret  to  his  mother  ?  If  they  lied  in  one  genealogy,  why  are  we 
to  believe  them  in  the  other  ?  If  his  natural  be  manufactured, 
which  it  certainly  is,  why  are  not  we  to  suppose,  that  his  celestial 
genealogy  is  manufactured  also  ;  and  that  the  whole  is  fabulous  ? 
Can  any  man  of  serious  reflection  hazard  his  future  happiness 
upon  the  belief  of  a  story  naturally  impossible  ;  repugnant  to  ev" 
ery  idea  of  decency  ;  and  related  by  persons  already  detected  of 
falsehood  ?  Is  it  not  more  safe,  that  we  stop  ourselves  at  the  plain, 
pure,  and  unmixed  belief  of  one  God,  which  is  deism,  than  that 
we  commit  ourselves  on  an  ocean  of  improbable,  irrational,  inde- 
cent, and  contradictory  tales  ? 

The  first  question,  however,  upon  the  books  of  the  New  Test- 
ament, as  upon  those  of  the  Old,  is,  are  they  genuine  ?  Were  they 
written  by  the  persons  to  whom  they  are  ascribed  ?  for  it  is  upon 
this  ground  only,  that  the  strange  things  related  therein  have  been 
credited.  Upon  this  point,  there  is  no  direct  proof  for  or  against; 

therefore,  the  average  age  of  each  person  mentioned  in  the  list,  at  the  time  his  first 
son  was  born,  it  is  only  necessary  to  divide  1080  by  27,  which  gives  40  years  for  each 
person.  As  the  life-time  of  man  was  then  but  of  the  same  extent  it  is  now,  it  is  an 
absurdity  to  suppose,  that  27  following  generations  should  all  be  old  bachelors,  before 
they  married ;  and  the  more  so,  when  we  are  told,  that  Solomon,  the  next  in  succes- 
sion to  David,  had  a  house  full  of  wives  and  mistresses  before  he  was  21  years  of  age. 
So  far  from  this  genealogy  being  a  solemn  truth,  it  is  not  even  a  reasonable  lie.  The 
list  of  Luke  gives  about  26  years  for  the  average  age,  and  this  is  too  much. 


126  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

and  all  that  this  state  of  a  case  proves,  is  doubtfulness  ;  and  doubt- 
fulness is  the  opposite  of  belief.  The  state,  therefore,  that  the 
books  are  in,  proves  against  themselves,  as  far  as  this  kind  of  proof 
can  go. 

But,  exclusive  of  this,  the  presumption  is,  that  the  books  call- 
ed the  Evangelists,  and  ascribed  to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and 
John  ;  were  not  written  by  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John  ; 
and  that  they  are  impositions.  The  disordered  sate  of  the  histo- 
ry in  these  four  books,  the  silence  of  one  book  upon  matters  relat- 
ed in  the  other,  and  the  disagreement  that  is  to  be  found  among 
them,  implies,  that  they  are  the  production  of  s"ome  unconnected 
individuals,  many  years  after  the  things  they  pretend  to  relate, 
each  of  whom  made  his  own  legend  ;  and  not  the  writings  of  men 
living  intimately  together,  as  the  men  called  apostles  are  suppos- 
ed to  have  done  :  in  line,  that  they  have  been  manufactured,  as 
the  books  of  the  old  testament  have  been,  by  other  persons  than 
those  whose  names  they  bear. 

The  story  of  the  angel  announcing,  what  the  church  calls,  the 
immaculate  conception,  is  not  so  much  as  mentioned  in  the  books 
ascribed  to  Mark  and  John  ;  and  is  differently  related  in  Matthew 
and  Luke.  The  former  says,  the  angel  appeared  to  Joseph  ;  the 
latter  says,  it  was  to  Mary  ;  but  either,  Joseph  or  Mary,  was  the 
worst  evidence  that  could  have  been  thought  of;  for  it  was  oth- 
ers that  should  have  tesiiiied  for  them,  and  not  they  for  themselves. 
Were  any  girl  that  is  now  with  child  to  say,  and  even  to  swear  it, 
that  she  was  gotten  with  child  by  a  ghost,  and  that  an  angel  told 
her  so,  would  she  be  believed  ?  Certainly  she  would  not.  Why 
then  are  we  to  believe  the  same  thing  of  another  girl  whom  we 
never  saw,  told  by  nobody  knows  who,  nor  when,  nor  where  ? 
How  strange  and  inconsistent  is  it,  that  the  same  circumstance 
that  would  weaken  the  belief  even  of  a  probable  story,  should  be 
given  as  a  motive  for  believing  this  one,  that  has  upon  the  face  of 
it  every  token  of  absolute  impossibility  and  imposture. 

The  story  of  Herod  destroying  all  the  children  under  two  years 
old,  belongs  altogether  to  the  book  of  Matthew  :  not  one  of  the 
rest  mentions  any  thing  about  it.  Had  such  a  circumstance  been 
true,  the  universality  of  it  must  have  made  it  known  to  all  the 
writers  ;  and  the  thing  would  have  been  too  striking  to  have  been 
omitted  by  any.  This  writer  tells  us,  that  Jesus  escaped  this 
slaughter,  because  Joseph  and  Mary  were  warned  by  an  angel  to 
flee  with  him  into  Egypt ;  but  he  forgot  to  make  any  provision  for 
John,  who  was  then  under  two  years  of  age.  John,  however^ 
who  staid  behind,  fared  as  well  as  Jesus  who  fled  ;  and  therefore 
the  story  circumstantially  belies  itself. 

Not  any  two  of  these  writers  agree  in  reciting,  exactly  in  the 
same  words,  the  written  inscription,  short  as  it  is,  which  they  teJl 
us  was  put  over  Christ  when  he  was  crucified :  and  besides  this, 
Mark  says,  he  was  crucified  at  the  third  hour,  (nine  in  the  morn- 


THE    AGE    OP    REASON.  127 

ing  ;)   and  John  says,  it  was  the  sixth  hour,  (twelve  at  noon.*) 
The  inscription  is  thus  stated  in  those  books. 

Matthew — This  is  Jesus  the  King  of  the  Jews. 

Mark The  king  of  the  Jews. 

Luke This  is  the  king  of  the  Jews. 

John Jesus  of  Nazareth  king  of  the  Jews. 

We  may  infer  from  these  circumstances,  trivial  as  they  are, 
that  those  writers,  whoever  they  were,  and  in  whatever  time  they 
lived,  were  not  present  at  the  scene.  The  only  one  of  the  men, 
called  apostles,  who  appears  to  have  been  near  the  spot,  was  Pe- 
ter ;  and  when  he  was  accused  of  being  one  of  Jesus's  followers, 
it  is  said,  (Matthew,  chap.  xxvi.  ver.  74,)  u  Then  Peter  began  to 
curse  and  to  swear,  saying,  I  know  not  the  man  :"  yet  we  are  now 
called  upon  to  believe  the  same  Peter,  convicted,  by  their  own  ac- 
count, of  perjury.  For  what  reason,  or  on  what  authority  shall 
we  do  this? 

The  accounts  that  are  given  of  the  circumstances,  that  they 
tell  us  attended  the  crucifixion,  are  differently  related  in  those 
four  books. 

The  book  ascribed  to  Matthew  says,  "  There  ivas  darkness  over 
all  the  land  from  tfie  sixth  hour  unto  the  ninth  hour — that  the  veil  of 
the  temple  was  rent  in  twain  from  the  top  to  the  bottom — that  there 
was  an  earthquake — that  the  rocks  rent — that  tlie  graves  opened, 
that  the  bodies  of  many  of  the  saints  that  slept  arose  and  came  out 
of  their  graves  after  the  resurrection,  and  went  into  the  holy  city,  and 
appeared  unto  many."  Such  is  the  account  which  this  dashing 
writer  of  the  book  of  Matthew  gives  ;  but  in  which  he  is  not  sup- 
ported by  the  writers  of  the  other  books. 

The  writer  of  the  book  ascribed  to  Mark,  in  detailing  the  cir- 
cumstances of  the  crucifixion,  makes  no  mention  of  any  earth- 
quake, nor  of  the  rocks  rending,  nor  of  the  graves  opening,  nor 
of  the  dead  men  walking  out.  The  writer  of  the  book  of  Luke 
is  silent  also  upon  the  same  points.  And  as  to  the  writer  of  the 
book  of  John,  though  he  details  all  the  circumstances  of  the  cru- 
cifixion down  to  the  burial  of  Christ,  he  says  nothing  about  ei- 
ther the  darkness — the  veil  of  the  temple — the  earthquake — the 
rocks — the  graves — nor  the  dead  men. 

Now  if  it  had  been  true,  that  those  things  had  happened  ;  and 
if  .the  writers  of  these  books  had  lived  at  the  time  they  did  hap- 
pen, and  had  been  the  persons  they  are  said  to  be,  namely,  the 
four  men  called  apostles,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  it  was 
not  possible  for  them,  as  true  historians,  even  without  the  aid  of 
inspiration,  not  to  have  recorded  them.  The  things,  suppos- 
ing them  to  have  been  facts,  were  of  too  much  notoriety  not  to 

*  According  to  John,  the  sentence  was  notpassed  till  about  the  sixth  hour,  (noon), 
and  consequently  the  execution  could  not  be  till  the  afternoon  ;  but  Mark  says  express- 
ly, that  he  was  crucified  at  the  third  hour,  (nine  in  the  morning),  chap.  xv.  25;  John, 
chap.  xix.  ver.  14. 


128  TrfE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

have  been  known,  and  of  too  much  importance  not  to  have  been 
told.  All  these-supposed  apostles  must  "have  been  witnesses  of 
the  earthquake,  if  there  had  been  any  ;  for  it  was  not  possible 
for  them  to  have  been  absent  from  k  ;  the  opening  of  the  graves 
and  the  resurrection  of  the  dead  men,  and  their  walking  about 
the  city,  is  of  greater  importance  than  the  earthquake.  An 
earthquake  is  always  possible,  and  natural,  and  proves  nothing  ; 
but  this  opening  of  the  graves  is  supernatural,  and  directly  in 
point  to  their  doctrine,  their  cause,  and  their  apostleship.  Had 
it  been  true,  it  would  have  filled  up  whole  chapters  of  those  books, 
and  been  the  chosen  theme  and  general  chorus  of  all  the  writers  ; 
but  instead  of  this,  little  and  trivial  things,  and  mere  prattling 
conversations  of,  he  said  this,  and  she  said  tliat,  are  often  tedious- 
ly detailed,  while  this  most  important  of  all,  had  it  been  true,  is 
passed  off  in  a  slovenly  manner  by  a  single  dash  of  the  pen,  and 
that  by  one  writer  only,  and  not  so  much  as  hinted  at  by  the 
rest. 

It  is  an  easy  thing  to  tell  a  lie,  but  it  is  difficult  to  support  the 
lie  after  it  is  told.  The  writer  of  the  book  of  Matthew  should 
have  told  us  who  the  saints  were  that  came  to  life  again,  and 
went  into  the  city,  and  what  became  of  them  afterwards,  and  who 
it  was  that  saw  them  ;  for  he  is  not  hardy  enough  to  say  he  saw 
them  himself ;  whether  they  came  out  naked,  and  all  in  natural 
buff,  he-saints  and  she-saints  ;  or  whether  they  came  full  dress- 
ed, and  where  they  got  their  dresses  ;  whether  they  went  to  their 
former  habitations,  and  reclaimed  their  wives,  their  husbands, 
and  their  property,  and  how  they  were  received  ;  whether  they 
entered  ejectments  for  the  recovery  of  their  possessions,  or 
brought  actions  of  crim.  con.  against  their  rival  interlopers  ; 
whether  they  remained  on  earth,  and  followed  their  former  oc- 
cupation of  preaching  or  working  ;  or  whether  they  died  again, 
or  went  back  to  their  graves  alive,  and  buried  themselves. 

Strange  indeed,  that  an  army  of  saints  should  return  to  life, 
and  nobody  know  who  they  were,  nor  who  it  was  that  saw  them, 
and  that  not  a  word  more  should  be  said  upon  the  subject,  nor 
these  saints  have  any  thing  to  tell  us  !  Had  it  been  the  prophets, 
who  (as  we  are  told)  had  formerly  prophecied  of  these  things,  they 
must  have  had  a  great  deal  to  say.  They  could  have  told  us 
every  thing,  and  we  should  have  had  posthumous  prophecies, 
with  notes  and  commentaries  upon  the  first,  a  little  better  at  least 
than  we  have  now.  Had  it  been  Moses,  and  Aaron,  and  Joshua, 
and  Samuel,  and  David,  not  an  unconverted  Jew  had  remained  in 
all  Jerusalem.  Had  it  bee«  John  the  Baptist,  and  the  saints  of 
the  time  then  present,  every  body  would  have  known  them,  and 
they  would  have  out-preached  and  out-famed  all  the  other  apos- 
tles. But  instead  of  this,  these  saints  are  made  to  pop  up,  like 
Jonah's  gourd  in  the  night,  for  no  purpose  at  all  but  to  wither  in 
the  morning.  Thus  much  for  this  part  of  the  story. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  129 

The  tale  of  the  resurrection  follows  that  of  the  crucifixion  ;  and 
in  this  as  well  as  in  that,  the  writers,  whoever  they  were,  disagree 
so  much,  as  to  make  it  evident  that  none  of  them  were  there. 

The  book  of  Matthew  states,  that  when  Christ  was  put  in  the 
sepulchre,  the  Jews  applied  to  Pilate  for  a  watch  or  a  guard  to 
be  placed  over  the  sepulchre,  to  prevent  the  body  being  stolen 
by  the  disciples  ;  and  that  in  consequence  of  this  request,  the 
sepulchre  was  made  sure,  sealing  the  stone  that  covered  the  mouth, 
and  setting  a  watch.  But  the  other  books  say  nothing  about 
this  application,  nor  about  the  sealing,  nor  the  guard,  nor  the 
watch;  and  according  to  their  accounts,  there  were  none. 
Matthew,  however,  follows  up  this  part  of  the  story  of  the  guard 
or  the  watch  with  a  second  part,  that  I  shall  notice  in  the  con- 
clusion, as  it  serves  to  detect  the  fallacy  of  those  books. 

The  book  of  Matthew  continues  its  account,  and  says,  (chap, 
xxviii.  ver.  1)  that  at  the  end  of  the  Sabbath,  as  it  began  to 
dawn,  towards  the  first  day  of  the  week,  came  Mary  Magdalene 
and  the  other  Mary,  to  see  the  sepulchre.  Mark  says  it  was 
sun-rising,  and  John  says  it  was  dark.  Luke  says  it  was  Mary 
Magdalene  and  Joanna,  and  Mary  the  mother  of  James,  and 
other  women,  that  came  to  the  sepulchre  ;  and  John  states,  that 
Mary  Magdalene  came  alone.  So  well  do  they  agree  about  their 
first  evidence  !  they  all,  however,  appear  to  have  known  most 
about  Mary  Magdalene  ;  she  was  a  woman  of  large  acquaintance, 
and  it  was  not  an  ill  conjecture  that  she  might  be  upon  the  stroll. 

The  book  of  Matthew  goes  on  to  say,  (ver.  2,)  "  And  behold 
there  was  a  great  earthquake,  for  the  angel  of  the  Lord  descend- 
ed from  heaven,  and  came  and  rolled  back  the  stone  from  the 
door,  and  sat  upon  it."  But  the  other  books  say  nothing  about 
any  earthquake,  nor  about  the  angel  rolling  back  the  stone,  and 
sitting  upon  it  ;  and  according  to  their  account,  there  was  no 
angel  sitting  there.  Mark  says  the  angel  was  within  the  sepul- 
chre, sitting  on  the  right  side.  Luke  says  there  were  two,  and 
they  were  both  standing  up  ;  and  John  says  they  were  both  sit- 
ting down,  one  at  the  head  and  the  other  at  the  feet. 

Matthew  says,  that  the  angel  that  was  sitting  upon  the  stone 
on  the  outside  of  the  sepulchre,  told  the  two  Marys  that  Christ 
was  risen,  and  that  the  women  went  away  quickly.  Mark  says, 
that  the  women,  upon  seeing  the  stone  rolled  away,  and  wonder- 
ing at  it,  went  into  the  sepulchre,  and  that  it  was  the  angel  that 
was  sitting  within  on  the  right  side,  that  told  them  so.  -Luke 
says,  it  was  the  two  angels  that  were  standing  up  ;  and  John 
says,  it  was  Jesus  Christ  himself  that  told  it  to  Mary  Magdalene  ; 
and  that  she  did  not  go  into  the  sepulchre,  but  only  stooped  down 
and  looked  in. 

Now,  if  the  writers  of  these  four  books  had  gone  into  a  court 
of  justice  to  prove  an  alibi  (for  it  is  of  the  nature  of  an  alibi  that 
is  here  attempted  to  be  proved,  namely,  the  absence  of  a  dead 


130  THE    AGE    OP    REASON. 

body  by  supernatural  means,)  and  had  they  given  their  evidence 
in  the  same  contradictory  manner  as  it  is  here  given,  they  would 
have  been  in  danger  of  having  their  ears  cropt  for  perjury,  and 
would  have  justly  deserved  it.  Yet  this  is  the  evidence,  and 
these  are  the  books,  that  have  been  imposed  upon  the  world,  as 
being  given  by  divine  inspiration,  and  as  the  unchangeable  word 
of  God. 

The  writer  of  the  book  of  Matthew,  after  giving  this  account, 
relates  a  story  that  is  not  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  other  books, 
and  which  is  the  same  I  have  just  before  alluded  to. 

"  Now,  says  he,  (that  is,  after  the  conversation  the  wo- 
men had  had  with  the  angel  sitting  upon  the  stone,)  behold  some 
of  the  watch  (meaning  the  watch  that  he  had  said  had  been  plac- 
ed over  the  sepulchre)  came  into  the  city,  and  showed  unto  the 
chief  priests  all  the  things  that  were  done  ;  and  when  they  were 
assembled  with  the  elders  and  had  taken  counsel,  they  gave  large 
money  unto  the  soldiers,  saying,  Say  ye,  that  his  disciples  came 
by  night,  and  stole  him  away  while  we  slept  ;  and  if  this  come  to 
the  governor's  ears,  we  will  persuade  him,  and  secure  you.  .  So 
they  took  the  money,  and  did  as  they  were  taught  ;  and  this  say- 
ing (that  his  disciples  stole  him  away)  is  commonly  reported 
among  the  Jews  until  this  day." 

The  expression,  until  this  day,  is  an  evidence  that  the  book  as- 
cribed to  Matthew  was  not  written  by  Matthew,  and  that  it  has 
been  manufactured  long  after  the  times  and  things  of  which  it 
pretends  to  treat  ;  for  the  expression  implies  a  great  length  of 
mtervening'time.  It  would  be  inconsistent  in  us  to  speak  in  this 
manner  of  any  thing  happening  in  our  own  time.  To  give, 
therefore,  intelligible  meaning  to  the  expression,  we  must  sup- 
pose a  lapse  of  some  generations  at  least,  for  this  manner  of 
speaking  carries  the  mind  back  to  ancient  time. 

The  absurdity  also  of  the  story  is  worth  noticing  ;  for  it  shows 
the  writer  of  the  book  of  Matthew  to  have  been  an  exceedingly 
weak  and  foolish  man.  He  tells  a  story,  that  contradicts  itself 
in  point  of  possibility  ;  for  though  the  guard,  if  there  were  any, 
might  be  made  to  say  that  the  body  was  taken  away  while  they 
were  asleep,  and  to  give  that  as  a  reason  for  their  not  having 
prevented  it,  that  same  sleep  must  also  have  prevented  their 
knowing  how,  and  by  whom  it  was  done  ;  and  yet  they  are  made 
to  say,  that  it  was  the  disciples  who  did  it.  Were  a  man  to  ten- 
der his  evidence  of  something  that  he  should  say  was  done,  and 
of  the  manner  of  doing  it,  and  of  the  person  who  did  it  while  he 
was  asleep,  and  could  know  nothing  of  the  matter,  such  evidence 
could  not  be  received  :  it  will  do  well  enough  for  Testament 
evidence,  but  not  for  any  thing  where  truth  is  concerned. 

I  come  now  to  that  part  of  the  evidence  in  those  books,  that 
respects  the  pretended  appearance  of  Christ  after  this  pretended 
resurrection. 


THE    AGE    OF   REASON.  131 

The  writer  of  the  book  of  Matthew  relates,  that  the  angel  that 
Was  sitting  on  the  stone  at  the  mouth  of  the  sepulchre,  said  to  the 
two  Marys,  chap,  xxviii.  ver.  7,  "Behold  Christ  is  gone  before 
you  into  Galilee^  there  ye  shall  see  him  ;  fo,  I  have  told  you.11  And 
the  same  writer,  at  the  two  next  verses  (8,  9,)  makes  Christ  him- 
self to  speak  to  the  same  purpose  to  these  women,  immediately 
after  the  angel  had  told  it  to  them,  and  that  they  ran  quickly  to 
tell  it  to  the  disciples  ;  and  at  the  16th  verse  it  is  said,  "  Then 
the  eleven  disciples  went  away  into  Galilee,  into  a  mountain  where 
Jesus  had  appointed  them  ;  and,  when  they  saw  him,  they  wor- 
shipped him.  ' 

But  the  writer  of  the  book  of  John  tells  us  a  story  very  differ- 
ent to  this  ;  for  he  says,  chap.  xx.  ver.  19,  "  Then  the  same  day 
at  evening,  being  the  first  day  of  the  week,  (that  is,  the  same  day 
that  Christ  is  said  to  have  risen,)  when  the  doors  were  shid,  ivhere 
the  disciples  were  assembled,  for  fear  of  the  Jews,  came  Jesus  and 
stood  in  the  midst  of  them.11 

According  to  Matthew,  the  eleven  were  marching  to  Galilee, 
to  meet  Jesus  in  a  mountain,  by  his  own  appointment,  at  the  very 
time  when,  according  to  John,  they  were  assembled  in  another 
place,  and  that  not  by  appointment  but  in  secret,  for  fear  of  the 
Jews. 

The  writer  of  the  book  of  Luke  contradicts  that  of  Matthew 
more  pointedly  than  John  does  ;  for  he  says  expressly,  that  the 
meeting  was  in  Jerusalem  the  evening  of  the  same  day  that  he 
(Christ)  rose,  and  that  the  eleven  were  tiiere.  See  Luke,  chap. 
xxiv.  ver,  13,  33. 

Now,  it  is  not  possible,  unless  we  admit  these  supposed  disci- 
ples the  right  of  wilful  lying,  that  the  writer  of  these  books  could 
be  any  of  the  eleven  persons  called  disciples  ;  for  if,  according 
to  Matthew,  the  eleven  went  into  Galilee  to  meet  Jesus  in  a 
mountain  by  his  own  appointment,  on  the  same  day  that  he  is 
said  to  have  risen,  Luke  and  John  must  have  been  two  of  that 
eleven  ;  yet  tire  writer  of  Luke  says  expressly,  and  John  implies 
as  much,  that  the  meeting  was,  that  same  day,  in  a  house  in  Je- 
rusalem ;  and,  on  the  other  hand,  if,  according  to  Luke  and  John, 
the  eleven  were  assembled  in  a  house  in  Jerusalem,  Matthew 
must  have  been  one  of  that  eleven  $  yet  Matthew  says,  the 
meeting  was  in  a  mountain  in  Galilee,  and  consequently  the  evi- 
dence given  in  those  books  destroys  each  other. 

The  writer  of  the  book  of  Mark  says  nothing  about  any  meet- 
ing in  Galilee  ;  but  he  says,  chap.  xvi.  ver.  12,  that  Christ,  after 
his  resurrection,  appeared  in  another  form  to  two  of  them,  as 
they  walked  into  the  country,  and  that  these  two  told  it  to  the 
residue,  who  would  not  believe  them.  Luke  also  tells  a  story,  in 
which  he  keeps  Christ  employed  the  whole  of  the  day  of  this 
pretended  resurrection,  until  the  evening,  and  which  totally  in- 
validates the  account  of  going  to  the  mountain  in  Galilee.  He 


132  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

says,  that  two  of  them,  without  saying  which  two,  went  that  same 
day  to  a  village  called  Emmaus,  threescore  furlongs  (seven  miles 
and  a  half)  from  Jerusalem,  and  that  Christ,  in  disguise,  went 
with  them,  and  staid  with  them  unto  the  evening,  and  supped  with 
them,  and  then  vanished  out  of  their  sight,  and  re-appeared  that 
same  evening,  at  the  meeting  of  the  eleven  in  Jerusalem. 

This  is  the  contradictory  manner  in  which  the  evidence  of  this 
pretended  re-appearance  of  Christ  is  stated  ;  the  only  point  in 
which  the  writers  agree,  is  the  skulking  privacy  of  that  re-ap- 
pearance ;  for  whether  it  was  in  the  recess  of  a  mountain  in 
Galilee,  or  in  a  shut  up  house  in  Jerusalem,  it  was  still  skulking. 
To  what  cause  then  are  we  to  assign  this  skulking  ?  On  the 
one  hand,  it  is  directly  repugnant  to  the  supposed  or  pretended 
end — that  of  convincing  the  world  that  Christ  was  risen  ;  and, 
on  the  other  hand,  to  have  asserted  the  publicity  of  it,  would  have 
exposed  the  writers  of  those  books  to  public  detection,  and  there- 
fore they  have  been  under  the  necessity  of  making  it  a  private 
affair. 

As  to  the  account  of  Christ  being  seen  by  more  than  five  hun- 
dred at  once,  it  is  Paul  only  who  says  it,  and  not  the  five  hundred 
who  say  it  for  themselves.  It  is,  therefore,  the  testimony  of  but 
one  man,  and  that  too  of  a  man,  who  did  not,  according  to  the 
same  account,  believe  a  word  of  the  matter  himself,  at  the  time 
it  is  said  to  have  happened.  His  evidence,  supposing  him  to 
have  been  the  writer  of  the  15th  chapter  of  Corinthians,  where 
this  account  is  given,  is  like  that  of  a  man,  who  comes  into  a  court 
of  justice  to  swear,  that  what  he  had  sworn  before  is  false.  A 
man  may  often  see  reason,  and  he  has  too  always  the  right  of 
changing  his  opinion  ;  but  this  liberty  does  not  extend  to  matters 
of  fact. 

I  now  come  to  the  last  scene,  that  of  the  ascension  into  heaven. 
Here  all  fear  of  the  Jews,  and  of  every  thing  else,  must  neces- 
sarily have  been  out  of  the  question  :  it  was  that  which,  if  true, 
was  to  seal  the  whole  ;  and  upon  which  the  reality  of  the  future 
mission  of  the  disciples  was  to  rest  for  proof.  Words,  whether 
declarations  or  promises,  that  passed  in  private,  either  in  the  re- 
cess of  a  mountain  in  Galilee,  or  in  a  shut-up  house  in  Jerusalem, 
even  supposing  them  to  have  been  spoken,  could  not  be  evidence 
in  public  ;  it  was  therefore  necessary  that  this  last  scene  should 
preclude  the  possibility  of  denial  and  dispute  ;  and  that  it  should 
be,  as  I  have  stated  in  the  former  part  of  the  Jige  of  Reason,  as 
public  and  as  visible  as  the  sun  at  noon  day  :  at  least  it  ought 
to  have  been  as  public  as  the  crucifixion  is  reported  to  have 
been.  But  to  come  to  the  point. 

In  the  first  place  the  writer  of  the  book  of  Matthew  does  not 
say  a  syllable  about  it  ;  neither  does  the  writer  of  the  book  of 
John.  This  being  the  case,  is  it  possible  to  suppose  that  those 
writers,  who  affect  to  be  even  minute  in  other  matters,  would 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  133 

have  been  silent  upon  this,  had  it  been  true  ?  The  writer  of  the 
book  of  Mark  passes  it  off  in  a  careless,  slovenly  manner,  with  a 
single  dash  of  the  pen,  as  if  he  was  tired  of  romancing,  or  asham- 
ed of  the  story.  So  also  does  the  writer  of  Luke.  And  even 
between  these  two,  there  is  not  an  apparent  agreement,  as  to 
the  place  where  this  final  parting  is  said  to  have  been. 

The  book  of  Mark  says,  that  Christ 'appeared  to  the  eleven  as 
they  sat  at  meat  ;  alluding  to  the  meeting  of  the  eleven  at  Je- 
rusalem :  he  then  states  the  conversation  that  he  says  passed  at 
that  meeting  ;  and  immediately  after  says  (as  a  school-boy  would 
finish  a  dull  story)  "  So  then,  after  the  Lord  had  spoken  unto 
them,  he  was  received  up  into  heaven,  and  sat  on  the  right  hand 
of  God."  But  the  writer  of  Luke  says,  that  the  ascension  was 
from  Bethany  ;  that  he  (Christ)  led  them  out  as  far  as  Bethany , 
and  was  parted  from  them  there,  and  was  carried  up  into  heaven. 
So  also  was  Mahomet :  and  as  to  Moses,  the  apostle  Jude  says, 
ver.  9,  That  Michael  and  the  devil  disputed  about  his  body. 
While  we  believe  such  fables  as  these,  or  either  of  them,  we  be- 
lieve unworthily  of  the  Almighty. 

I  have  now  gone  through  the  examination  of  the  four  books 
ascribed  to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John  ;  and  when  it  is 
considered  that  the  whole  space  of  time,  from  the  crucifixion  to 
what  is  called  the  ascension,  is  but  a  few  days,  apparently  not 
more  than  three  or  four,  and  that  all  the  circumstances  are  re- 
ported to  have  happened  nearly  about  the  same  spot,  Jerusalem  ; 
it  is,  I  believe  impossible  to  find,  in  any  story  upon  record,  so 
many  and  such  glaring  absurdities,  contradictions,  and  false- 
hoods, as  are  in  those  books.  They  are  more  numerous  and 
striking  than  I  had  any  expectation  of  finding,  when  I  began 
this  examination,  and  far  more  so  than  I  had  any  idea  of,  when  I 
wrote  the- former  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason.  1  had  then  neither 
Bible  or  Testament  to  refer  to,  nor  could  I  procure  any.  My 
own  situation,  even  as  to  existence,  was  becoming  every  day 
more  precarious  ;  and  as  I  was  willing  to  leave  something  be- 
hind me  upon  the  subject,  I  was  obliged  to  be  qaick  and  concise 
The  quotations  I  then  made  were  from  memory  only,  but  they 
are  correct  ;  and  the  opinions  I  have  advanced  in  that  work  are 
the  effect  of  the  most,  clear  and  long  established  conviction — that 
the  Bible  and  the  Testament  are  impositions  upon  the  world — 
that  the  fall  of  man — the  account  of  Jesus  Christ  being  the  Son 
of  God,  and  of  his  dying  to  appease  the  wrath  of  God,  arid  of 
salvation  by  that  strange  means,  are  all  fabulous  inventions,  dis- 
honourable to  the  wisdom  and  power  of  the  Almighty — that  the 
only  true  religion  is  Deism,  by  which  I  then  meant,  and  now 
mean,  the  belief  of  one  God,  and  an  imitation  of  his  moral  char- 
acter, or  the  practice  of  what  are  called  moral  virtues — and  that 
it  was  upon  this  only  (so  far  as  religion  is  concerned)  that  1 


134  THE    AGE    OF    REASON 

rested  all  my  hopes  of  happiness  hereafter.     So  say  I  now^ — and 
so  help  me  God. 

But  to  return  to  the  subject. — Though  it  is  impossible,  at  this 
distance  of  time,  to  ascertain  as  a  fact  who  were  the  writers  of 
those  four  books,  (and  this  alone  is  sufficient  to  hold  them  in 
doubt,  and  where  we  doubt  we  do  nof  believe)  it  is  not  difficult 
to  ascertain  negatively  that  they  were  not  written  by  the  persons 
to  whom  they  are  ascribed.  The  contradictions  in  those  books 
demonstrate  two  things  : 

First,  that  the  writers  cannot  have  been  eye-witnesses  and 
ear-v/itnesses  of  the  matters  they  relate,  or  they  would  have  re- 
lated them  without  those  contradictions  ;  and  consequently  that 
the  books  have  not  been  written  by  the  persons  called  apostles, 
who  are  supposed  to  have  been  witnesses  of  this  kind. 

Secondly,  that  the  writers,  whoever  they  were,  have  not  acted 
in  concerted  imposition,  but  each  writer,  separately  and  individu- 
ally for  himself,  and  without  the  knowledge  of  the  other. 

The  same  evidence  that  applies  to  prove  the  one,  applies  equal- 
ly to  prove  both  cases  ;  that  is,  that  the  books  were  not  written 
by  the  men  called  the  apostles,  and  also  that  they  are  not^a  con- 
certed imposition.  As  to  inspiration,  it  is  altogether  out"  of  the 
question  ;  we  may  as  well  attempt  to  unite  truth  and  falsehood, 
as  inspiration  and  contradiction. 

If  four  men  are  eye-witnesses  and  ear-witnesses  to  a  scene, 
they  will,  without  any  concert  between  them,  agree  as  to  the 
time  and  place  when  and  where  that  scene  happened.  Their 
individual  knowledge  of  the  thing,  each  one  knowing  it  for  him- 
self, renders  concert  totally  unnecessary  ;  the  one  will  not  say 
it  was  in  a  mountain  in  the  country,  and  the  other  at  a  house  in 
town  ;  the  one  will  not  say  it  was  at  sun-rise,  and  the  other  that 
it  was  dark.  For  in  whatever  place  it  was,  at  whatever  time  it 
was,  they  know  it  equally  alike. 

1  And,  on  the  other  hand,  if  four  men  concert  a  story,  they  will 
make  their  separate  relations  of  that  story  agree,  and  corroborate 
with  each  other  to  support  the  whole.  That  concert  supplies  the 
want  of  fact  in  the  one  case,  as  the  knowledge  of  the  fact  super- 
cedes,  in  the  other  case,  the  necessity  of  a  concert.  The  same 
contradictions,  therefore,  that  prove  there  has  been  no  concert, 
p-rove  also  that  the  reporters  had  no  knowledge  of  the  fact  (or 
rather  of  that  which  they  relate  as  a  fact,)  and  detect  also  the 
falsehood  of  their  reports.  Those  books,  therefore,  have  neither 
been  written  by  the  men  called  apostles,  nor  by  impostors  in  con- 
cert. How  then  have  they  been  written  ? 

I  am  not  bne  of  those  who  are  fond  of  believing  there  is  much 
of  that  which  is  called  wilful  lying,  or  lying  originally  ;  except 
in  the  case  of  men  setting  up  to  be  prophets,  as  in  the  Old  Tes- 
tament :  for  prophesying  is  lying  professionally.  In  almost  all 
other  cases,  it  is  not  difficult  to  discover  the  progress,  by  which 


THE    AGE    OP   REASON.  135 

even  simple  supposition,  with  the  aid  of  credulity,  will,  in  time, 
grow  into  a  lie,  and  at  last  be  told  as  a  fact  ;  and  whenever  we 
can  find  a  charitable  reason  for  a  thing  of  this  kind,  we  ought 
not  to  indulge  a  severe  one. 

The  story  of  Jesus  Christ  appearing  afler  he  was  dead,  is  the 
story  of  an  apparition,  such  as  timid  imaginations  can  always  cre- 
ate in  vision,  and  credulity  believe.  Stories  of  this  kind  had 
been  told  of  the  assassination  of  Julius  Caesar,  not  many  years 
before,  and  they  generally  have  their  origin  in  violent  deaths, 
or  in  the  execution  of  innocent  persons.  In  cases  of  this  kind, 
compassion  lends  its  aid,  and  benevolently  stretches  the  story. 
It  goes  on  a  little  and  a  little  farther,  till  it.  becomes  a  most  cer- 
tain truih.  Once  start  a  ghost,  and  credulity  fills  up  the  history 
of  its  life,  and  assigns  the  cause  of  its  appearance  !  one  tells  it 
one  way,  another  another  way,  till  there  are  as  many  stories 
about  the  ghost  and  about  the  proprietor  of  the  ghost,  as  there 
are  about  Jesus  Christ  in  these  four  books. 

The  story  of  the  appearance  of  Jesus  Christ  is  told  with  that 
strange  mixture  of  the  natural  and  impossible,  that  distinguishes 
legendary  tale  from  fact.  He  is  represented  as  suddenly  coming 
in  and  going  out  when  the  doors  are  shut,  and  of  vanishing  out 
of  sight,  and  appearing  again,  as  one  would  conceive  of  an  un- 
substantial vision  ;  then  again  he  is  hungry,  sits  down  to  meat, 
and  eats  his  supper.  But  as  those  who  tell  stories  of  this  kind, 
never  provide  for  all  the  cases,  so  it  is  here  :  they  have  told  us, 
that  when  he  arose  he  left  his  grave  clothes  behind  him  ;  but 
they  have. forgotten  to  provide  other  clothes  for  him  to  appear  in 
afterwards,  or  tell  to  us  what  he  did  with  them  when  )ie  ascend- 
ed ;  whether  he  stripped  all  off,  or  went  up  clothes  and  all.  In 
the  case  of  Elijah,  they  have  been  careful  enough  to  make  him 
throw  down  his  mantle  ;  how  it  happened  not  to  be  burnt  in  the 
chariot  of  fire,  they  also  have  not  told  us.  But  as  imagination 
supplies  all  deficiencies  of  this  kind,  we  may  suppose,  if  we  please, 
that  it  was  made  of  salamander's  wool. 

Those  who  are  not  much  acquainted  with  ecclesiastical  histo- 
ry, may  suppose  that  the  book  called  the  New  Testament  has 
existed  ever  since  the  time  of  Jesus  Christ,  as  they  suppose  that 
the  books  ascribed  to  Moses  have  existed  ever  since  the  time  of 
Moses.  But  the  fact  is  historically  otherwise  ;  there  was  no 
such  book  as  the  New  Testament  till  more  than  three  hundred 
years  after  the  time  that  Christ  is  said  to  have  lived. 

At  what  time  the  books  ascribed  to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and 
John,  began  to  appear,  is  altogether  a  matter  of  uncertainty. 
There  is  not  the  least  shadow  of  evidence  of  who  the  persons  were 
that  wrote  them,  noj  at  what  time  they  were  written  ;  and  they 
might  as  well  have  been  called  by  the  names  of  any  of  the  other 
supposed  apostles,  as  by  the  names  they  are  now  called.  The 
originals  are  not  in  the  possession  of  any  Christian  Church  exist- 


136  THE    AGE    OF    REASOtf. 

ing,  any  more  than  the  two  tables  of  stone  written  on,  they  pre- 
tend, by  the  finger  of  God,  upon  mount  Sinai,  and  given  to  Moses, 
are  in  the  possession  of  the  Jews.  And  even  if  they  were,  there 
is  no  possibility  of  proving  the  hand  writing  in  either  case.  At 
the  time  those  books  were  written  there  was  no  printing,  and  con- 
sequently there  could  be  no  publication,  otherwise  than  by  writ- 
ten copies,  which  any  man  might  make  or  alter  at  pleasure,  and 
call  them  originals.  Can  we  suppose  it  is  consistent  with  the  wis- 
dom of  the  Almighty,  to  commit  himself  and  his  will  to  man,  upon 
such  precarious  means  as  these,  or  that  it  is  consistent  we  should 
pin  our  faith  upon  such  uncertainties?  We  cannot  make  nor  alter, 
nor  even  imitate,  so  much  as  one  blade  of  grass  that  he  has  made, 
and  yet  we  can  make  or  alter  words  of  &od  as  easily  as  words  of 
man.* 

About  three  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  time  that  Christ  is 
said  to  have  lived,  several  writings  of  the  kind  I  am  speaking  of, 
were  scattered  in  the  hands  of  divers  individuals  ;  and  as  the 
church  had  begun  to  form  itself  into  a  hierarchy,  or  church  govern- 
ment, with  temporal  powers,  it  set  itself  about  collecting  them  into 
a  code,  as  we  now  see  them,  called  The  New  Testament.  They 
decided  by  vote,  as  I  have  before  said  in  the  former  part  of  the 
Jlge  of  Reason,  which  of  those  writings,  out  of  the  collection  they 
had  made,  should  be  the  word  of  God,  and  which  should  not.  The 
Rabbins  of  the  Jews  had  decided,  by  vote,  upon  the  books  of  the 
Bible  before. 

As  the  object  of  the  church,  as  is  the  case  in  all  national  estab- 
lishments of  churches,  was  power  and  revenue,  and  terror  the 
means  it  used  :  it  is  consistent  to  suppose,  that  the  most  miracu- 
lous and  wonderful  of  the  writings  they  had  collected  stood  the 
best  chance  of  being  voted.  And  as  to  the  authenticity  of  the 
books,  the  vote  stands  in  the  place  of  it ;  for  it  can  be  traced  no 
higher. 

Disputes,  however,  ran  high  among  the  people  then  calling 
themselves  Christians  ;  not  only  as  to  points  of  doctine,  but  as  to 
the  authenticity  of  the  books.  In  the  contest  between  the  per- 
sons called  St.  Augustine  and  Fauste,  about  the  year  400,  the  lat- 
ter says,  "The  books  called  the  Evangelists  have  been  composed 
long  after  the 'times  of  the  apostles,  by  some  obscure  men,  who, 
fearing  that  the  world  would  not  give  credit  to  their  relation  of 

*  The  former  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason  has  not  been  published  two  years,  and 
there  is  already  an  expression  in  it  that  is  not  mine.  The  expression  is,  The  book 
of  Luke  was  carried  by  a  majority  of  one  voice  only.  It  may  be  true,  but  it  is  not 
I  that  have  said  it.  Some  person,  whojnight  know  of  the  circumstance,  has  added  it 
in  a  note  at  die  bottom  of  the  page  m  some  of  the  editions,  printed  either  in  England 
or  in  America ;  and  the  printers,  after  that,  have  erected  it  into  the  body  of  the  work, 
and  made  me  die  author  of  it.  If  this  has  happened  within  snch  a  short  space  of  lime, 
notwithstanding  the  aid  of  printing,  which  prevents  the  alteration  of  copies  individu- 
ally; what  may  not  have  happened  in  much  greater  length  of  time,  when  there  was  no 
printing,  and  when  any  man  who  could  write  could  make  a  written  copy,  and  call  it 
an  original,  by  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  or  John. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  137 

matters  of  which  they  could  not  be  informed,  have  published  them 
under  the  names  of  the  apostles  ;  and  which  are  so  full  of  sottish- 
ness  and  discordant  relations,  that  there  is  neither  agreement  nor 
connection  between  them." 

And  in  another  place,  addressing  himself  to  the  advocates  of 
those  books,  as  being  the  word  of  God,  he  says,  "  It  is  thus  that 
your  predecessors  have  inserted  in  the  scriptures  of  our  Lord, 
many  things,  which,  though  they  carry  his  name,  agree  not  with 
his  doctrines.  This  is  not  surprising,  since  that  we  have  often  prov- 
ed that  these  things  have  not  been  written  by  himself,  nor  by  his 
apostles,  but  that  for  the  greatest  part  they  are  founded  upon  tales, 
upon  vague  reports,  and  put  together  by  I  know  not  what,  half 
Jews,  with  but  little  agreement  between  them  ;  and  which  they 
have  nevertheless  published  under  the  names  of  the  apostles  of  our 
Lord,  and  have  thus  attributed  to  them  their  own  errors  and  their 

UC9.»* 

The  reader  will  see  by  these  extracts,  that  the  authenticity  of 
the  books"  of  the  New  Testament  was  denied,  and  the  books  treat- 
ed as  tales,  forgeries,  and  lies,  at  the  time  they  were  voted  to  be 
the  word  of  God.  But  the  interest  of  the  church,  with  the  assist- 
ance of  the  faggot,  bore  down  the  opposition,  and  at  last  suppress- 
ed all  investigation.  Miracles  followed  upon  miracles,  if  we  will 
believe  them,  and  men  were  taught  to  say  they  believed  whether 
they  believed  or  not.  But  (by  way  of  throwing  in  a  thought)  the 
French  Revolution  has  excommunicated  the  church  from  the  pow- 
er of  working  miracles  :  she  has  not  been  able,  with  the  assistance 
of  all  her  saints,  to  work  one  miracle  since  the  revolution  began  j 
and  as  she  never  stood  in  greater  need  than  now,  we  may,  without 
the  aid  of  divination,  conclude,  that  all  her  former  miracles  were 
tricks  and  lies.f 

*  I  have  taken  these  two  extracts  from  Boulanger's  Life  of  Paul,  written  in  French  ; 
Boulanger  lias  quoted  them  from  the  writings  of  Augustine  against  Fauste,  to  which 
he  refers. 

f  Boulanger,  in  his  Life  of  Paul,  has  collected  from  the  ecclesiastical  histories,  and 
the  writings  of  the  fathers,  as  they  are  called,  several  matters  which  show  the  opinions 
that  prevailed  among  the  different  sects  of  Christians  at  the  time  the  Testament,  as  we 
now  see  it,  was  voted  to  he  the  word  of  God.  The  following  extracts  are  from  the 
second  chapter  of  that  work. 

"  The  Marcionists,  (.a  Christian  sect),  assured  that  the  evangelists  were  filled  with 
falsities.  The  Manicheens,  who  formed  a  very  numerous  sect  at  the  commencement 
of  Christianity,  rejected  as  false,  all  the  New  Testament  ;  and  showed  other  writ- 
ings quite  different  that  they  gave  for  authentic.  The  Corinthians,  lil'e  the  Marcion- 
ists, admitted  not  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles.  The  Encratites,  and  the  SeveniatM,  adopt- 
ed neither  the  Acts  nor  the  Epistles  of  Paul.  Chrysostome,  in  a  homily  which  he  made 
upon  die  Acts  o/the  Apostles,  says,  that  in  his  time,  about  the  year  460,  many  people 
knew  nothing  eitlier  of  the  author  or  of  the  hook.  St.  Irene,  who  lived  before  that 
time,  reports  that  the  Valcntinians,  like  several  other  sects  of  the  Christians,  accused 
the  Scriptures  of  being  filled  with  imperfections,  errors,  and  contradictions.  The 
Ebionites  or  Nazarenes,  who  were  the  first  Christians,  rejected  all  the  Epistles  of  Paul, 
and  regarded  him  as  an  impostor.  They  report,  amonn;  other  things,  that  ho  was  ori- 
ginally a  Pagan,  that  he  came  to  Jerusalem,  where  he  lived  some  time  ;  and  that  hav- 
ing a  mind  to  marry  the  daughter  of  the  high  priest,  he  caused  himself  to  be  circum- 


138  THE    AGE    OF   REASON. 

When  we  consider  tlie  lapse  of  more  than  three  hundred  years 
intervening  hetween  the  time  that  Christ  is  said  to  have  lived  and 
the  time  the  New  Testament  was  formed  into  a  book,  we  must  see, 
even  without  the  a-ssistance  of  historical  evidence,  the  exceeding 
uncertainty  there  is  of  its  authenticity.  The  authenticity  of  the 
book  of  Homer,  so  far  as  regards  the  authorship,  is  much  better 
established  than  that  of  the  New  Testament,  though  Homer  is  a 
thousand  years  the  most  ancient.  It  was  only  an  exceeding  good 
poet  that  could  have  written  the  book  of  Homer,  and  therefore  few 
men  only  could  have  attempted  it ;  and  a  man  capable  of  doing  it 
Would  not  have  thrown  away  his  own  fame  by  giving  it  to  another 
In  like  manner,  there  were  but  few  that  could  have  composed  Eu- 
clid's Elements,  because  none  but  an  exceeding  good  geometrician 
could  have  been  the  author  of  that  work. 

But  with  respect  to  the  books  of  the  New  Testament,  particular- 
ly such  parts  as  tell  us  of  the  resurrection  and  ascension  of  Christ, 
any  person  who  could  tell  a  story  of  an  apparition,  or  of  a  man's 
walking,  could  have  made  such  books  ;  for  the  story  is  most  wretch- 
edly told.  The  chance,  therefore,  of  forgery  in  the  Testament,  is 
millions  to  one  greaterthan  in  the  case  of  Homer  or  Euclid.  Of 
the  numerous  priests  or  parsons  of  the  present  day,  bishops  and  all, 
every  one  of  them  can  make  a  sermon,  or  translate  a  scrap  of 
Latin,  especially  if  it  has  been  translated  a  thousand  times  before  ; 
but  is  there  any  amongst  them  that  can  write  poetry  like  Homer, 
or  science  like  Euclid?  The  sum  total  of  a  parson's  learning,  with 
very  few  exceptions,  is  a  b  ab,  and  hie  /MEC,  hoc;  and  their  know- 
ledge of  science  is  three  times  one  is  three  ;  and  this  is  more 
than  sufficient  to  have  enabled  them,  had  they  lived  at  the  time,  to 
have  written  all  the  books  of  the  New  Testament. 

As  the  opportunities  of  forgery  were  greater,  so  also  was  the  in- 
ducement. A  man  could  gain  no  advantage  by  writing  under  the 
name  of  Homer  or  Euclid  ;  if  he  could  write  equal  to  them,  it 
would  be  better  that  he  wrote  under  his  own  name  ;  if  inferior,  he 
could  not  succeed.  Pride  would  prevent  the  former,  and  impossi- 
bility the  latter.  But  with  respect  to  such  books  as  compose  the 
New  Testament,  all  the  inducements  were  on  the  side  of  forgery. 
The  best  imagined  history  that  could  have  been  made,  at  the  dis- 
tance of  two  or  three  hundred  years  after  the  time,  could  not  have 
passed  for  an  original  under  the  name  of  the  real  writer  ;  the  only 
chance  of  success  lay  in  forgery,  for  the  church  wanted  pretence 
for  its  new  doctrine,  and  truth  and  talents  were  out  of  the  ques- 
tion. 

But  as  it  is  not  uncommon  (as  before  observed)  to  relate  stories 
of  persons  walking  after  they  are  dead,  and  of  ghosts  and  appari- 
tions of  such  as  have  fallen  by  some  violent  or  extraordinary 

cised ;  but  that  not  beirrj  able  to  obtain  her,  he  quarrelled  with  the  Jews,  an.l  \rrote 
against  circumcision,  anrcl  against  the  observation  of  the  sabbath,  and  against  all  die 
legal  ordinances.'* 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  139 

means  ;  and  as  the  people  of  that  day  were  in  the  habit  of  be- 
lieving such  things,  and  of  the  appearance  of  angels,  and  also  of 
devils,  and  of  their  getting  into  people's  insides,  and  shaking  them 
like  a  fit  of  an  ague,  and  of  their  being  cast  out  again  as  if  by  an 
emetic — (Mary  Magdalene, ihe  book  of  Mark  tells  us,  had  brought 
up,  or  been  brought  to  bed  of  seven  devils  ;)  it  was  nothing  extra- 
ordinary that  some  story  of  this  kind  should  get  abroad  of  the 
person  called  Jesus  Christ,  and  become  afterwards  the  foundation 
of  the  four  books  ascribed  to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John. 
Each  writer  told  the  tale  as  he  heard  it,  or  thereabouts,  and  gave 
to  his  book  the  name  of  the  saint  or  the  apostle  whom  tradition  had 
given  as  the  eye-witness.  It  is  only  upon  this  ground  that  the  con- 
tradictions in  those  books  can  be  accounted  for  ;  and  if  this  be  not 
the  case,  they  are  downright  impositions,  lies,  and  forgeries,  with- 
out even  the  apology  of  credulity. 

That  they  have  been  written  by  a  sort  of  half  Jews,  as  the  fore- 
going quotations  mention,  is  discernible  enough.  The  frequent 
references  made  to  that  chief  assassin  and  impostor  Moses,  and  to 
the  men  called  prophets,  establishes  this  point  ;  and,  on  the  other 
hand,  the  church  has  complimented  the  fraud,  by  admitting  the 
Bible  and  the  Testament  to  reply  to  each  other.  Between  the 
Christian  Jew  and  the  Christian  Gentile,  the  thing  called  a  pro- 
phecy, and  the  thing  prophesied  ;  the  type,  and  the  thing  typified 
the  sign  and  the  thing  signified,  have  been  industriously  rum- 
maged up,  and  fitted  together  like  old  locks  and  pick-lock  keys. 
The  story,  foolishly  enough  told  of  Eve  and  the  serpent,  and  nat- 
urally enough  as  to  the  enmity  between  men  and  serpents  (for  the 
serpent  always  bites  about  the  /ice/,  because  it  cannot  reach  high- 
er ;  and  the  man  always  "knocks  the  Serpent  about  the  head,  as 
the  most  effectual  way  to  prevent,  its  biting  ;*)  this  foolish  story, 
I  say,  has  been  made  into  a  prophecy,  a  type,  and  a  promise  to 
begin  with  ;  and  the  lying  imposition  of  Isaiah  to  Ahaz,  That  a 
virgin  shall  conceive  and  bear  a  son,  as  a  sign  that  Ahaz  should 
conquer,  when  the  event  was  that  he  was  defeated  (as  already 
noticed  in  the  observations  on  the  book  of  Isaiah,)  has  been  per- 
verted, and  made  to  serve  as  a  winder-up. 

Jonah  and  the  whale  arc  also  made  into  a  sign  or  a  type.  Jonah 
is  Jesus,  and  the  whale  is  the  grave  :  for  it  i.5  said,  (and  they  have 
made  Christ  to  say  it  of  himself)  Matt.  chap.  xvii.  ver.  40,  "For 
as  Jonah  was  three  days  and  three  nights  in  the  whale's  belly,  so 
shall  the  son  of  man  be  three  days  and  three  nights  m  the  heart  of 
the  earth."  But  it  happens  ankwardly  enough  that  Christ,  ac- 
cording to  their  own  account,  was  but  one  day  and  two  nights  in 
the  grave  ;  about  36  hours,  instead  of  72  ;  that  is,  the  Friday 
night,  the  Saturday,  and  the  Saturday  night  ;  for  they  say  he  was 
up  on  the  Sunday  morning  by  sun-rise,  or  before.  But  as  this  fits 

*  "  It  shall  bruise  thy  head,  and  thou  shall  bruise  his  heel"     Gen.  ch.  iii.  ver.  15. 


140  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

quite  as  well  as  the  bile  and  the  kick  in  Genesis,  or  the  virgin  and 
her  son  in  Isaiah,  it  will  pass  in  the  lump  of  orthodox  things. 
Thus  much  for  the  historical  part  of  the  Testament  and  its  evi- 
dences. 

Epistles  of  Paul — The  epistles  ascribed  to  Paul,  being  fourteen 
in  number,  almost  fill  up  the  remaining  part  of  the  Testament. 
Whether  those  epistles  were  written  by  the  person  to  whom  they 
are  ascribed,  is  a  matter  of  no  great  importance,  since  the  writer, 
whoever  he  was,  attempts  to  prove  his  doctrine  by  argument.  He 
does  not  pretend  to  have  been  witness  to  any  of  the  scenes  told  of 
the  resurrection  and  the  ascension  ;  and  he  declares  that  he  had 
not  believed  them. 

The  story  of  his  being  struck  to  the  ground  as  he  was  journey- 
ing to  Damascus,  has  nothing  in  it  miraculous  or  extraordinary  ; 
he  escaped  with  his  life,  and  that  is  more  than  many  others  have 
done,  who  have  been  struck  with  lightning  ;  and  that  he  should 
loose  his  sight  for  three  days,  and  be  unable  to  eat  or  drink  during 
that  time,  is  nothing  more  than  is  common  in  such  conditions.  His 
companions  that  were  with  him  appear  not  to  have  suffered  in  the 
same  manner,  for  they  were  well  enough  to  lead  him  the  remain- 
der of  the  journey  ;  neither  did  they  pretend  to  have  seen  any  vi- 
sion. 

The  character  of  the  person  called  Paul,  according  to  the  ac- 
counts given  of  him,  has  in  it  a  great  deal  of  violence  and  fanati- 
cism ;  he  had  persecuted  with  as  much  heat  as  he  preached  after- 
wards ;  the  stroke  he  had  received  had  changed  his  thinking,  with- 
out altering  his  constitution  ;  and,  either  as  a  Jew  or  a  Christian, 
he  was  the  same  zealot.  Such  men  are  never  good  moral  eviden- 
ces of  any  doctrine  they  preach.  They  are  always  in  extremes, 
as  well  of  action  as  of  belief. 

The  doctrine  he  sets  out  to  prove  by  argument,  is  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  same  body:  and  he  advances  this  as  an  evidence  of  im- 
mortality. But  so  much  will  men  differ  in  their  manner  of  think- 
ing, and  in  the  conclusions  they  draw  from  the  same  premises,  that 
this  doctrine  of  the  resurrection  of  the  same  body,  so  far  from  be- 
ing an  evidence  of  immortality,  appears  to  me  to  furnish  an  evi- 
dence against  it  ;  for  if  I  had  already  died  in  this  body,  and  am 
raised  again  in  the  same  body  in  which  I  have  died,  it  is  presump- 
tive evidence  that  I  shall  die  again.  That  resurrection  no  more 
secures  me  against  the  repetition  of  dying,  than  an  ague  fit,  "when 
past,  secures  me  against  another.  To  believe,  therefore,  in  im- 
mortality, I  must  have  a  more  elevated  idea  than  is  contained  in 
the  gloomy  doctrine  of  the  resurrection. 

Besides,  as  a  matter  of  choice,  as  well  as  of  hope,  I  had  rather 
have  a  better  body  and  a  more  convenient  form  than  the  present. 
Every  animal  in  the  creation  excels  us  in  something.  The  wing- 
ed insects,  without  mentioning  doves  or  eagles,  can  pass  over  more 
space  and  with  greater  ease,  in  a  few  minutes,  than  man  can  in  an 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  141 

hour.  The  glide  of  the  smallest  fish,  in  proportion  to  its  bulk,  ex- 
ceeds us  in  motion,  almost  beyond  comparison,  and  without  weari- 
ness. Even  the  sluggish  snail  can  ascend  from  the  bottom  of  a 
dungeon,  where  a  man,  by  the  want  of  that  ability,  would  perish; 
and  a  spider  can  launch  itself  from  the  top,  as  a  playful  amusement. 
The  personal  powers  of  man  are  so  limited,  and  his  heavy  frame 
so  little  constructed  to  extensive  enjoyment,  that  there  is  nothing 
to  induce  us  to  wish  the  opinion  of  Paul  to  be  true.  It  is  too  little 
for  the  magnitude  of  the  scene — too  mean  for  the  sublimity  of  the 
subject. 

But  all  other  arguments  apart  ;  the  consciousness  of  existence 
is  the  only  conceivable  idea  we  can  have  of  another  life,  and  the 
continuance  of  that  consciousness  is  immortality.  The  conscious- 
ness of  existence,  or  the  knowing  that  we  exist,  is  not  necessarily 
confined  to  the  same  form,  nor  to  the  same  matter,  even  in  this 
life. 

We  have  not  in  all  cases  the  same  form,  nor  in  any  case  the  same 
matter,  that  composed  our  bodies  twenty  or  thirty  years  ago  ;  and 
yet  we  are  conscious  of  being  the  same  persons.  Even  legs  and 
arms,  which  make  up  almost  half  the  human  frame,  are  not  neces- 
sary to  the  consciousness  of  existence.  These  may  be  lost  or 
taken  away,  and  the  full  consciousness  of  existence  remain  ;  and 
were  their  place  supplied  by  wings  or  other  appendages,  we  can- 
not conceive  that  it  could  alter  our  consciousness  of  existence. 
In  short,  we  know  not  how  much,  or  rather  how  little,  of  our  com- 
position it  is,  and  how  exquisitely  fine  that  little  is,  that  creates  in 
us  this  consciousness  of  existence  ;  and  all  beyond  that  is  like  the 
pulp  of  a  peach,  distinct  and  separate  from  the  vegetative  speck 
in  the  kernel. 

Who  can  say  by  what  exceeding  fine  action  of  fine  matter  it  is 
that  a  thought  is  produced  in  what  we  call  the  mind?  and  yet  that 
thought,  when  produced,  as  I  now  produce  the  thought  I  am  writ- 
ing, is  capable  of  becoming  immortal,  and  is  the  only  production 
of  man  that  has  that  capacity. 

Statues  of  brass  or  marble  will  perish  ;  and  statues  made  in  im- 
itation of  them  are  not  the  same  statues,  nor  the  same  workman- 
ship, any  more  than  the  copy  of  a  picture  is  the  same  picture.  But 
print  and  reprint  a  thought  a  thousand  times  over,  and  that  with 
materials  of  any  kind — carve  it  in  wood,  or  engrave  it  on  stone, 
the  thought  is  eternally  and  identically  the  same  thought  in  every 
case.  It  has  a  capacity  of  unimpaired  existence,  unaffected  by 
change  of  matter,  and  is  essentially  distinct,  and  of  a  nature  differ- 
ent from  every  thing  else  that  we  know  or  can  conceive.  If  then 
.he  thing  produced  has  in  itself  a  capacity  of  being  immortal,  it  is 
more  than  a  token  that  the  power  that  produced  it,  which  is  the 
self-same  thing  as  consciousness  of  existence,  can  be  immortal  al- 
so ;  and  that  as  independently  of  the  matter  it  was  first  connected 
with,  as  the  thought  is  of  the  printing  or  writing  it  first  appeared  in. 


142  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

The  one  idea  is  not  more  difficult  to  believe  than  the  other,  and  we 
can  see  that  one  is  true. 

That  the  consciousness  of  existence  is  not  dependent  on  the 
snme  form  or  the  same  matter,  is  demonstrated  to  our  senses  in  the 
works  of  the  creation,  as  far  as  our  senses  are  capable  of  receiving 
that  demonstration.  A  very  numerous  part  of  the  animal  creation 
preaches  to  us,  far  better  than  Paul,  the  belief  of  a  life  hereafter. 
Their  little  life  resembles  an  earth  and  a  heaven — a  present  and  a 
future  state  :  and  comprises,  if  it  may  be  so  expressed,  immortal- 
ity in  miniature. 

The  most  beautiful  parts  of  the  creation  to  our  eye  are  the 
winged  insects,  and  they  are  not  so  originally.  They  acquire  that 
form  and  that  inimitable  brilliancy  by  progressive  changes.  The 
slow  and  creeping  caterpillar-worm  of  to-day,  passes  in  a  few  days 
to  a  torpid  figure,  and  a  state  resembling  death  ;  and  in  the  next 
change  comes  forth  in  all  the  miniature  magnificence  of  life  a 
splendid  butterfly.  No  resemblance  of  the  former  creature  re- 
mains ;  every  thing  is  changed  ;  all  his  powers  are  new,  and  life 
is  to  him  another  thing.  We  cannot  conceive  that  the  conscious- 
ness of  existence  is  not  the  same  in  this  state  of  the  animal  as  be- 
fore ;  why  then  must  I  believe  that  the  resurrection  of  the  same 
body  is  necessary  to  continue  to  me  the  consciousness  of  existence 
hereafter. 

In  the  former  part  of  the  Jlge  of  Reason,  I  have  called  the  cre- 
ation the  only  true  and  real  word  of  God  ;  and  this  instance,  of  this 
text,  in  the  book  of  creation,  not  only  shows  to  us  that  this  thing 
may  be  so,  but  that  it  is  so  ;  and  that  the  belief  of  a  future  state  is 
a  rational  belief,  founded  upon  facts  visible  in  the  creation  :  for  it 
is  not  more  difficult  to  believe  that  we  shall  exist  hereafter  in  a 
better  state  and  form  than  at  present,  than  that  a  worm  should  be- 
come a  butterfly,  and  quit  the  dunghill  for  the  atmosphere,  if  we 
did  not  know  it  as  a  fact. 

As  to  the  doubtful  jargon  ascribed  to  Paul  in  the  15th  chapter 
of  1  Corinthians,  which  makes  part  of  the  burial  service  of  some 
Christian  sectaries,  it  is  as  destitute  of  meaning  as  the  tolling  of 
the  bell  at  the  funeral ;  it  explains  nothing  to  the  understanding — 
it  illustrates  nothing  to  the  imagination,  but  leaves  the  reader  to 
find  any  meaning  if  he  can.  "All  flesh  (says  he)  is  not  the  same 
flesh.  There  is  one  flesh  of  men  ;  another  of  beasts  ;  another  of 
fishes;  and  another  of  birds.''  And  what  then? — nothing.  A 
cook  could  have  said  as  much.  "There  are  also  (says  he)  bodies 
'celestial  ap,d  bodies  terrestrial  ;  the  glory  of  the  celestial  is  one, 
and  the  glory  of  the  terrestrial  is  another."  And  what  then? — 
nothing.  And  what  is  the  difference?  nothing  that  he  has  told. 
"There  is  (says  he)  one  glory  of  the  sun,  and  another  glory  of  the 
moon,  and  another  glory  of  the  stars."  And  what  then? — noth- 
ing ;  except  that  he  says  that  one  star  differethfrom  another  star  in 
glory  j  instead  of  distance  ;  and  he  might  as  well  have  told  us,  that 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  143 

• 

the  moon  did  not  shine  so  bright  as  the  sun.  All  this  is  nothing 
better  than  the  jargon  of  a  conjuror,  who  picks  up  phrases  he  does 
not  understand,  to  confound  the  credulous  people  who  come  to  have 
their  fortunes  told.  Priests  and  conjurors  are  of  the  same  trade. 

Sometimes  Paul  affects  to  be  a  naturalist,  and  to  prove  his  sys- 
tem of  resurrection  from  the  principles  of  vegetation.  "Thou 
fool,  (says  he)  that  which  thou  sowest  is  not  quickened  except  it 
die."  To  which  one  might  reply  in  his  own  language,  and  say, 
Thou  fool,  Paul,  that  which  thou  sowest  is  not  quickened  except  it 
die  not;  for  the  grain  that  dies  in  the  ground  never  does,  nor  can 
vegetate.  It  is  only  the  living  grains  that  produce  the  next  crop. 
But  the  metaphor,  in  any  point  of  view,  is  no  simile.  It  is  suc- 
cession, and  not  resurrection. 

The  progress  of  an  animal  from  one  state  of  being  to  another, 
as  from  a  worm  to  a  butterfly,  applies  to  the  case  ;  but  this  of  a 
grain  does  not,  a;id  shows  Paul  to  have  been  what  he  says  of  oth- 
ers, a  fool. 

Whether  the  fourteen  epistles  ascribed  to  Paul  were  written  by 
him  or  not,  is  a  matter  of  indifference  :  they  are  either  argumenta- 
tive or  dogmatical;  and  as  the  argument  is  defective,  and  the  dog- 
matical part  is  merely  presumptive,  it  signifies  not  who  wrote  them. 
And  the  same  may  be  said  for  the  remaining  parts  of  the  Testa- 
ment. It  is  not  upon  the  epistles,  but  upon  what  is  called  the  gos- 
pel, contained  in  the  four  books  ascribed  to  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke, 
and  John,  and  upon  the  pretended  prophecies,  that  the  theory  of 
the  church,  calling  itself  the  Christian  church,  is  founded.  The 
epistles  are  dependent  upon  those,  and  must  follow  their  fate;  for 
if  the  story  of  Jesus  Christ  be  fabulous,  all  reasoning  founded  upon 
it  as  a  supposed  truth,  must  fall  with  it. 

We  know  from  history,  that  one  of  the  principal  leaders  of  this 
church,  Athanasius,  lived  at  the  time  the  New  Testament  was 
formed  ;*  and  we  know  also,  from  the  absurd  jargon  he  has  left 
us  under  the  name  of  a  creed,  the  character  of  the  men  who 
formed  the  New  Testament  ;  and  we  know  also  from  the  same 
history,  that  the  authenticity  of  the  books  of  which  it  is  compos- 
ed was  denied  at  the  time.  It  was  upon  the  vote  of  such  as 
Athanasius,  that  the  Testament  was  decreed  to  be  the  word  of 
God  ;  and  nothing  can  present  to  us  a  more  strange  idea  than 
that  of  decreeing  the  word  of  God  by  vote.  Those  who  rest 
their  faith  upon  such  authority,  put  man  in  the  place  of  God,  and 
have  no  foundation  for  future  happiness  ;  credulity,  however,  is 
not  a  crime  ;  but  it  becomes  criminal  by  resisting  conviction.  It 
is  strangling  in  the  womb  of  the  conscience  the  efforts  it  makes 
to  ascertain  truth.  We  should  never  force  belief  upon  ourselves 
in  any  thing. 

I  here  close  the  subject  on  the   Old  Testament  and  the  New. 

*  Athanasius  died,  according  to  the  church  chronology,  in  the  year  371. 


144  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

The  evidence  I  have  produced  to  prove  them  forgeries,  is  ex- 
tracted from  the  books  themselves,  and  acts,  like  a  two  edged 
sword,  either  way.  If  the  evidence  be  denied,  the  authenticity 
of  the  scriptures  is  denied  with  it  ;  for  it  is  scripture  evidence  : 
and  if  the  evidence  be  admitted,  the  authenticity  of  the  books  is 
disproved.  The  contradictory  impossibilities  contained  in  the  Old 
Testament  and  the  New,  put  them  in  the  case  of  a  man  who 
swearg  for  and  against.  Either  evidence  convicts  him  of  perjury, 
and  equally  destroys  reputation. 

Should  the  Bible  and  Testament  hereafter  fall,  it  is  not  I  that 
have  been  the  occasion.  I  have  done  no  more  than  extracted 
the  evidence  from  the  confused  mass  of  matter  with  which  it  is 
mixed,  and  arranged  that  evidence  in  a  point  of  light  to  be  clear- 
ly seen  and  easily  comprehended  :  and  having  done  this,  I  leave 
the  reader  to  judge  for  himself,  as  I  have  judged  for  myself. 


CONCLUSION. 

In  the  former  part  of  the  Jige  of  "Reason,  I  have  spoken  of  the 
three  frauds,  mystery,  miracle,  and  prophecy  ;  and  as  1  have  seen 
nothing  in  any  of  the  answers  to  that  work,  that  in  the  least  af- 
fects what  I  have  there  said  upon  those  subjects,  I  shall  not  en- 
cumber this  Second  Part  with  additions  that  are  not  necessary. 

I  have  spoken  also  in  the  same  work  upon  what  is  called  reve- 
lation, and  have  shown  the  absurd  misapplication  of  that  term  to 
the  books  of  the  Old  Testament  and  the  New  ;  for  certainly  rev- 
elation is  out  of  the  question  in  reciting  any  thing  of  which  man 
has  been  the  actor,  or  the  witness.  That  which  a  man  has  done 
or  seen,  needs  no  revelation  to  tell  him  he  has  done  it,  or  seen 
*t  ;  for  he  knows  it  already  ;  nor  to  enable  him  to  tell  it,  or  to 
<vrite  it.  It  is  ignorance,  or  imposition,  to  apply  the  term  reve- 
lation in  such  cases  ;  yet  the  Bible  and  Testament  are  classed 
under  this  fraudulent  description  of  being  all  revelation. 

Revelation  then,  so  far  as  the  term  has  relation  between  God 
and  man,  can  only  be  applied  to  something  which  God  reveals  of 
his  tvill  to  man  ;  but  though  the  power  of  the  Almighty  to  make 
such  a  communication,  is  necessarily  admitted,  because  to  that 
power  all  things  are  possible,  yet,  the  thing  so  revealed  (if  any 
thing  ever  was  revealed,  and  which,  by  the  bye,  it  is  impossible 
to  prove)  is  revelation  to  the  person  only  to  whom  it  is  made.  His 
account  of  it  to  another  is  not  revelation  ;  and  whoever  puts  faith 
in  that  account,  puts  it  in  the  man  from  whom  the  account  comes  ; 
and  that  man  may  have  been  deceived,  or  may  have  dreamed  it  ; 
or  he  may  be  an  impostor,  and  may  lie.  There  is  no  possible 
criterion  whereby  to  judge  of  the  truth  of  what  he  tells  ;  for  even 
the  morality  of  it  would  be  no  proof  of  revelation.  In  all  such  cases, 
the  prooer  answer  would  be,  "  When  it  is  revealed  to  me,  I  will 


THE   AGE   OP  REASON.  145 

believe  it  to  be  a  revelation  ;  but  it  is  not,  and  cannot  be  incumbent 
upon  me  to  believe  it  to  be  revelation  before  ;  neither  is  it  proper  thai  1 
should  take  the  word  of  a  man  as  Hie  word  of  God,  and  put  man  in 
the  place  of  God."  This  is  the  manner  in  which  I  have  spoken  of 
revelation  in  the  former  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason  ;  and  which, 
while  it  reverentially  admits  revelation  as  a  possible  thing,  be- 
cause, as  before  said,  to  the  Almighty  all  things  are  possible,  it 
prevents  the  imposition  of  one  man  upon  another,  and  precludes 
the  wicked  use  of  pretended  revelation. 

But  though,  speaking  for  myself,  I  thus  admit  the  possibility  of 
revelation,  I  totally  disbelieve  that  the  Almighty  ever  did  commu- 
nicate any  thing  to  man,  by  any  mode  of  speech,  in  any  language, 
or  by  any  kind  of  vision,  or  appearance,  or  by  any  means  which 
our  senses  are  capable  of  receiving,  otherwise  than  by  the  uni- 
versal display  of  himself  in  the  works  of  the  creation,  and  by  that 
repugnance  we  feel  in  ourselves  to  bad  actions,  and  disposition 
to  good  »nes. 

The  most  detestable  wickedness,  the  most  horrid  cruelties,  and 
the  greatest  miseries,  that  have  afflicted  the  human  race,  have 
had  their  origin  in  this  thing  called  revelation,  or  revealed  re- 
ligion. It  has  been  the  most  dishonourable  belief  against  the 
character  of  the  Divinity,  the  most  destructive  to  morality,  and  the 
peace  and  happiness  of  man,  that  ever  was  propagated  since  man 
began  to  exist.  It  is  better,  far  better,  that  we  admitted,  if  it 
were  possible,  a  thousand  devils  to  roam  at  large,  and  to  preach 
publicly  the  doctrine  of  devils,  if  there  were  any  such,  than  that 
we  permitted  one  such  impostor  and  monster  as  Moses,  Joshua, 
Samuel,  and  the  Bible  prophets,  to  come  with  the  pretended  word 
of  God  in  his  mouth,  and  have  credit  among  us. 

Whence  arose  all  the  horrid  assassinations  of  whole  nations  of 
men,  women,  and  infants,  with  which  the  Bible  is  filled  ;  and  the 
bloody  persecutions,  and  tortures  unto  death,  and  religious  wars, 
that  since  that  time  have  laid  Europe  in  blood  and  ashes  ; 
whence  arose  they,  but  from  this  impious  thing  called  revealed 
religion,  and  this  monstrous  belief,  that  God  has  spoken  to  man  ? 
The  lies  of  the  Bible  have  been  the  cause  of  the  one,  and  the 
lies  of  the  Testament  of  the  other. 

Some  Christians  pretend,  that  Christianity  was  not  established 
by  the  sword  ;  but  of  what  period  of  time  do  they  speak  ?  It 
was  impossible  that  twelve  men  could  begin  with  the  sword  ; 
they  had  not  the  power  ;  but  no  sooner  were  the  professors  of 
Christianity  sufficiently  powerful  to  employ  the  sword,  than  they 
did  so,  and  the  stake  and  the  faggot  too  ;  and  Mahomet  could 
not  do  it  sooner.  By  the  same  spirit  that  Peter  cut  off  the  ear 
of  the  high  priest's  servant  (if  the  story  be  true)  he  would  have 
cut  off  his  head,  and  the  head  of  his  master,  had  he  been  abU». 
Besides  this,  Christianity  grounds  itself  originally  upon  the  Bi- 
ble, and  the  Bible  was  established  altogether  by  the  sword,  and 
13 


146  THE    AGE    OP   REASON. 

that  in  the  worst  use  of  it ;  not  to  terrify,  but  to  Extirpate.  The 
Jews  made  no  converts  ;  they  butchered  all.  The  Bible  is  the 
sire  of  the  Testament,  and  both  are  called  the  word  of  God. 
The  Christians  read  both  books  ;  the  ministers  preach  from 
both  books  ;  and  this  thing  called  Christianity  is  made  up  of 
both.  It  is  then  false  to  say  that  Christianity  was  not  establish- 
ed by  the  sword. 

The  only  sect  that  has  not  persecuted  are  the  Quakers  ;  and 
the  only  reason  that  can  be  given  for  it  is,  that  they  are  rather 
Deists  than  Christians.  They  do  not  believe  much  about  Jesus 
Christ,  and  they  call  the  Scriptures  a  dead  letter.  Had  they 
called  them  by  a  worse  name,  they  had  been  nearer  the  truth. 

It  is  incumbent  on  every  man  vrho  reverences  the  character  of 
the  Creator,  and  who  wishes  to  lessen  the  catalogue  of  artificial" 
miseries,  and  remove  the  cause  that  has  sown  persecutions  thick 
among  mankind,  to  expel  all  ideas  of  revealed  religion  as  a  dan- 
gerous heresy,  and  an  impious  fraud.  What  is  it  that  we  have 
learned  from  this  pretended  thing  called  revealed  religion  ?  no- 
thing that  is  useful  to  man,  and  every  thing  that  is  dishonourable 
to  his  Maker.  What  is  it  the  Bible  teaches  us  ? — rapine,  cruel- 
ty, and  murder.  What  is  it  the  Testament  teaches  us  ? — to  be- 
lieve that  the  Almighty  committed  debauchery  with  a  woman, 
engaged  to  be  married  !  and  the  belief  of  this  debauchery  is  call- 
ed faith. 

As  to  the  fragments  of  morality  that  are  irregularly  and  thinly 
scattered  in  those  books,  they  make  no  part  of  this  pretended 
thing  revealed  religion.  They  are  the  natural  dictates  of  con- 
science, and  the  bonds  by  which  society  is  held  together,  and 
without  which,  it  cannot  exist  ;  and  are  nearly  the  same  in  all 
religions,  and  in  all  societies.  The  Testament  teaches  nothing 
new  upon  this  subject,  and  where  it  attempts  to  exceed,  it  be- 
comes mean  and  ridiculous.  The  doctrine  of  not  retaliating  in- 
juries, is  much  better  expressed  in  proverbs,  which  is  a  collec- 
tion as  well  from  the  Gentiles  as  the  Jews,  than  it  is  in  the  Tes- 
tament. It  is  there  said,  Proverbs  xxv.  ver.  21,  "  If  thine  enemy 
be  hungry,  give  him  bread  to  eat ;  and  if  he  be  thirsty,  give  him 
water  to  drink  :"*  but  when  it  is  said,  as  in  the  Testament,  "  If 

*  According  to  what  is  called  Christ's  sermon  on  the  mount,  in  die  book  of  Matthew, 
where,  among  some  other  good  tilings,  a  great  deal  of  this  feigned  morality  is  intro- 
duced, it  is  there  expressly  said,  that  the  doctrine  of  forbearance,  or  of  not  retaliating 
injuries,  was  not  any  part  of  the  doctraie  of  the  Jews  ;  but  as  this  doctrine  is 
founded  in  proverbs,  it  must,  according  tb  that  statement,  have  been  copied  from  the 
Gentiles,  from  whom  Christ  had  learned  it.  Those  men,  whom  Jewish  and  Chris- 
tian idolaters  have  abusively  called  heathens,  had  much  better  and  clearer  ideas  of 
justice  and  morality  than  are  to  be  found  in  the  Old  Testament,  so  far  as  it  is  Jewish  ; 
or  in  the  New.  The  answer  of  Solon  on  the  question,  "  Which  is  the  most  perfect 
popular  government,"  has  never  been  exceeded  by  any  man  since  his  time,  as  con 
taining  a  maxim  of  political  morality.  "  That,"  says  he,  "  where  the  least  injury 
done  tq  the  meanest  individual,  is  considered  as  an  insult  on  the  whole  conttitu- 
tion."  Solon  lived  about  500  years  before  Christ. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  147 

a  man  smite  thee  on  the  right  cheeky  turn  to  him  the  other  also  ;"  it 
is  assassinating  the  dignity  of  forbearance,  and  sinking  man  into 
a  spaniel.  . 

Loving  enemies,  is  another  dogma  of  feigned  morality,  and  has 
besides  no  meaning.  It  is  incumbent  on  man, -ate  a  moralist,  that 
he  does  not  revenge  an  injury  ;  and  it  is  equally  as  good  in  a 
political  sense,  for  there  is  no  end  to  retaliation,  each  retaliates 
on  the  other,  and  calls  it  justice  ;  but  to  love  in  proportion  to  the 
injury,  if  it  could  be  done,  would  be  to  offer  a  premium  for  crime. 
Besides,  the  word  enemies  is  too  vague  and  general  to  be  used 
in  a  moral  maxim,  which  ought  always  to  be  clear  and  defined, 
like  a  proverb.  If  a  man  be  the  enemy  of  another  from  mistake 
and  prejudice,  as  in  the  case  of  religious  opinions,  and  sometimes 
in  politics,  that  man  is  different  to  an  enemy  at  heart  with  a  crim- 
inal intention  ;  and  it  is  incumbent  upon  us,  and  it  contributes 
also  to  our  tranquillity,  that  we  put  the  best  construction  upon  a 
thing  that  it  will  bear.  But  even  this  erroneous  motive  in  him, 
makes  no  motive  for  love  on  the  other  part  ;  and  to  say  that  we 
can  love  voluntarily,  and  without  a  motive,  is  morally  and  phy- 
sically impossible. 

Morality  is  injured  by  prescribing  to  it  duties,  that,  in  the  first 
place,  are  impossible  to  be  performed;  and,  if  they  could  be, 
would  be  productive  of  evil  ;  or,  as  before  said,  be  premiums  for 
crime.  The  maxim  of  doing  as  we  mould  be  done  unto,  does  not 
include  this  strange  doctrine  of  loving  enemies  ;  for  no  man  ex- 
pects to  be  loved  himself  for  his  crime  or  for  his  enmity. 

Those  who  preach  this  doctrine  of  loving  their  enemies,  are  in 
general  the  greatest  persecutors,  and  they  act  consistently  by  so 
doing  ;  for  the  doctrine  is  hypocritical,  and  it  is  natural  that  hy- 
pocrisy should  act  the  reverse  of  what  it  preaches.  For  my  own 
part,  I  disown  the  doctrine,  and  consider  it  as  feigned  or  a  fabulous 
morality  ;  yet  the  man  does  not  exist  that  can  say  I  have  per- 
secuted him,  or  any  man,  or  any  set  of  men,  either  in  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution,  or  in  the  French  Revolution  ;  or  that  I  have,  ir* 
any  case,  returned  evil  for  evil.  But  it  is  not  incumbent  on  man 
toTeward  a  bad  action  with-  a  good  one,  or  to  return  good  for 
evil ;  and  wherever  it  is  done,  it  is  a  voluntary  act,  and  not  a 
duty.  It  is  also  absurd  to  suppose  that  such  doctrine  can  make 
any  part  of  a  revealed  religion.  We  imitate  the  moral  charac- 
ter of  the  Creator  by  forbearing  with  each  other,  for  he  forbears 
•with  all  ;  but  this  doctrine  would  imply  that  he  loved  man,  not 
in  proportion  as  he  was  good,  but  as  he  was  bad. 

If  we  consider  the  nature  of  our  condition  here,  we  must  see 
there  is  no  occasion  for  such  a  thing  as  revealed  religion.  What 
is  it  we  want  to  know  ?  Does  not  the  creation,  the  universe  we 
behold,  preach  to  us  the  existence  of  an  Almighty  power  that 
governs  and  regulates  the  whole  ?  And  is  not  the  evidence  that 
this  creation  holds  out  to  our  senses  infinitely  stronger  than  any 


148  THE    AGE    OF   REASON. 

thing  we  can  read  in  a  book,  that  any  impostor  might  make  and 
call  the  word  of  God  ?  As  for  morality,  the  knowledge  of  it  ex- 
ists in  every  man's  conscience. 

Here  we  are.  The  existence  of  an  Almighty  power  is  suffi- 
ciently demonstrated  to  us,  though  we  cannot  conceive,  as  it  is 
impossible  we  should,  the  nature  and  manner  of  its  existence. 
We  cannot  Conceive  how  we  came  here  ourselves,  and  yet  we 
know  for  a  fact  that  we  are  here.  We  must  know,  also,  that  the 
power  that  called  us  into  being,  can,  if  he  please,  and  when  he 
pleases,  call  us  to  account  for  the  manner  in  which  we  have  liv- 
ed here  ;  and,  therefore,  without  seeking  any  other  motive  for 
the  belief,  it  is  rational  to  believe  that  he  will,  for  we  know  be- 
fore-hand that  he  can.  The  probability,  or  even  possibility  of  the 
thing  is  all  that  we  ought  to  know  ;  for  if  we  knew  it  as  a  fact, 
we  should  be  the  mere  slaves  of  terror  ;  our  belief  would  have 
no  merit  ;  and  our  best  actions  no  virtue. 

Deism  then  teaches  us,  without  the  possibility  of  being  de- 
ceived, all  that  is  necessary  or  proper  to  be  known.  The  cre- 
ation is  the  Bible  of  the  Deist.  He  there  reads,  in  the  hand- 
writing of  the  Creator  himself,  the  certainty  of  his  existence,  and 
the  immutability  of  his  power,  and  all  other  Bibles  and  Testa- 
ments are  to  him  forgeries.  The  probability  that  we  may  be 
called  to  account  hereafter,  will,  to  a  reflecting  mind,  have 
the  influence  of  belief ;  for  it  is  not  our  belief  or  disbelief  that  can 
make  or  unmake  the  fact.  As  this  is  the  state  we  are  in,  and 
which  it  is  proper  we  should  be  in,  as  free  agents,  it  is  the  fool 
only,  and  not  the  philosopher,  or  even  the  prudent  man,  that 
would  live  as  if  there  were  no  God. 

But  the  belief  of  a  God  is  so  weakened  by  being  mixed  with 
the  strange  fable  of  the  Christian  creed,  and  with  the  wild  ad- 
ventures related  in  the  Bible,  and  of  the  obscurity  and  obscene 
nonsense  of  the  Testament,  that  the  mind  of  man  is  bewildered 
as  in  a  fog.  Viewing  all  these  things  in  a  confused  mass,  he 
confounds  fact  with  fable  ;  and  as  he  cannot  believe  all,  he  feels 
a  disposition  to  reject  all..  But  the  belief  of  a  God  is  a  belief 
distinct  from  all  other  things,  and  ought  not  to  be  confounded 
with  any.  The  notion  of  a  Trinity  of  Gods  has  enfeebled  the 
belief  of  one  God.  A  multiplication  of  beliefs  acts  as  a  division  of 
belief ;  and  in  ppoportion  as  any  thing  is  divided  it  is  weakened. 
Religion,  by  such  means,  becomes  a  thing  of  form,  instead  of 
fact ;  of  notion  instead  of  principles  ;  morality  is  banished  to 
make  room  for  an  imaginary  thing,  called  faith,  and  this  faith  has 
its  origin  in  a  supposed  debauchery  ;  a  man  is  preached  instead 
of  God  ;  and  execution  is  an  object  for  gratitude  ;  the  preachers 
daub  themselves  with  the  blood,  like  a  troop  of  assassins,  and  pre- 
tend to  admire  the  brilliancy  it  gives  them  ;  they  preach  a  hum- 
drum sermon  on  the  merits  of  the  execution  ;  then  praise  Jesus 
Christ  for  being  executed,  and  condemn  the  Jews  for  doing  it. 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  149 

A  man,  by  hearing  all  this  nonsense  lumped  and  preached  to- 
gether, confounds  the  God  of  creation  with  the  imagined  God  of 
Christians,  and  lives  as  if  there  were  none. 

Of  all  the  systems  of  religion  that  ever  were  invented,  there  is 
none  more  derogatory  to  the  Almighty,  more  unedifying  to  man, 
more  repugnant  to  reason,  and  more  contradictory  in  itself,  than 
this  thing  called  Christianity.  Too  absurd  for  belief,  too  impos- 
sible to  convince,  and  too  inconsistent  for  practice,  it  renders  the 
heart  torpid,  or  produces  only  atheists. and  fanatics.  As  an  en- 
gine of  power,  it  serves  the  purpose  of  despotism  ;  and  as  a 
means  of  wealth,  the  avarice  of  priests  ;  but  so  far  as  respects 
the  good  of  man  in  general,  it  leads  to  nothing  here  or  hereafter. 

The  only  religion  that  has  not  been  invented,  and  that  has  in 
it  every  evidence  of  divine  originality,  is  pure  and  simple  Deism. 
It  must  have  been  the  first,  and  will  probably  be  the  last  that  man 
believes.  But  pure  and  simple  Deism  does  not  answer  the  pur- 
pose of  despotic  governments.  They  cannot  lay  hold  of  religion 
as  an  engine,  but  by  mixing  it  with  human  inventions,  and  making 
their  own  authority  a  part  ;  neither  does  it  answer  the  avarice  of 
priests,  but  by  incorporating  themselves  and  their  functions  with 
it,  and  becoming,  like  the  government,  a  party  in  the  system. 
It  is  this  that  forms  the  otherwise  mysterious  conno  -tion  of  church 
and  state  ;  the  church  humane,  and  the  state  tyrannic. 

Were  man  impressed  as  fully  and  as  strongly  as  he  ought  to  be, 
with  the  belief  of  a  God,  his  moral  life  would  be  regulated  by  the 
force  of  that  belief;  he  would  stand  in  awe  of  God,  and  of  him- 
self, and  would  not  do  the  thiyg  that  could  not  be  concealed  from 
either.  To  give  this  belief  the  full  opportunity  of  force,  it  is 
necessary  that  it  acts  alone.  This  is  Deism. 

But  when,  according  to  the  Christian  trinitarian  scheme,  one 
part  of  God  is  represented  by  a  dying  man,  and  another  part  called 
the  Holy  Ghost,  by  a  flying  pigeon,  it  is  impossible  that  belief  can 
attach  itself  to  such  wild  conceits.* 

It  has  been  the  scheme  of  the  Christian  church,  and  of  all  the 
other  invented  systems  of  religion,  to  hold  man  in  ignorance  of 
the  Creator,  as  it  is  of  government  to  hold  man  in  ignorance  of  his 
rights.  The  systems  of  the  one  are  as  false  as  those  of  the  other, 
and  are  calculated  for  mutual  support.  The  study  of  theology, 
as  it  stands  in  Christian  churches,  is  the  study  of  nothing  ;  it  is 
founded  on  nothing  ;  it  rests  on  no  principles  ;  it  proceeds  by  no 
authorities  ;  it  has  no  data  ;  it  can  demonstrate  nothing  ;  and  it 
admits  of  no  conclusion.  Not  any  thing  can  be  studied  as  a  sci- 
ence, without  our  being  in  possession  of  the  principles  upon  which 

*The  book  called  the  book  of  Matthew,  says,ch.  iii.  ver.  16,  that  the  Holy  Ghost 
descended  in  the  shape  of  a  dove.  It  might  as  well  have  said  a  goose ;  the  creatures 
are  equally  harmless,  and  the  one  is  as  much  a  nonsensical  lie  as  the  other.  The  se- 
cond rf  Acts,  ver.  2,  3,  says,  that  it  descended  in  a  mighty  rushing  wind,  in  the  shape 
of  cloven  tongues  :  perhaps  it  was  cloven  feet.  Such  absurd  stuff  is  only  fit  for  tales 
of  witches  and  wizards. 


150  THE    AGE    OF    REASOX, 

it  is  founded  ;  and  as  this  is  not  the  case  with  Christian  theology, 
it  is  therefore  the  study  of  nothing. 

Instead  then  of  studying  theology,  as  is  now  done,  out  of  the 
Bible  and  Testament,  the  meanings  of  which  books  are  always 
controverted,  and  the  authenticity  of  which  is  disproved,  it  is  ne- 
cessary that  we  refer  to  the  Bible  of  the  creation.  The  princi- 
ples we  discover  there  are  eternal,  arid  of  divine  origin  :  they  are 
the  foundation  of  all  the  science  that  exists  in  the  world,  and  must 
be  the  foundation  of  theology. 

We  can  know  God  only  through  his  works.  We  cannot  have 
a  conception  of  any  one  attribute,  but  by  following  some  principle 
that  leads  to  it.  We  have  only  a  confused  idea  of  his  power,  if 
we  have  not  the  means  of  comprehending  something  of  its  im- 
mensity. We  can  have  no  idea  of  his  wisdom,  but  by  knowing 
the  order  and  manner  in  which  it  acts.  The  principles  of  science 
lead  to  this  knowledge  ;  for  the  Creator  of  man  is  the  Creator  of 
science,  and  it  is  through  that  medium  that  man  can  see  God,  as 
it  were,  face  to  face. 

Could  a  man  be  placed  in  a  situation,  and  endowed  with  the 
power  of  vision,  to  behold  at  one  view,  and  to  contemplate  delib- 
erately, the  structure  of  the  universe  ;  to  mark  the  movements  of 
the  several  planets,  the  cause  of  their  varying  appearances,  the 
unerring  order  in  which  they  revolve,  even  to  the  remotest  comet ; 
their  connections  and  dependence  on  each  other,  and  to  know  the 
system  of  laws  established  by  the  Creator,  that  governs  and  reg- 
ulates the  whole  ;  he  would  then  conceive,  far  beyond  what  any 
church  theology  can  teach  him,  the*  power,  the  wisdom,  the  vast- 
ness,  the  munificence  of  the  Creator  ;  he  would  then  see,  that  all 
the  knowledge  man  has  of  science,  and  that  all  the  mechanical 
arts  by  which  he  renders  his  situation  comfortable  here,  are  de- 
rived from  that  source  :  his  mind,  exalted  by  the  scene,  and  con- 
vinced by  the  fact,  would  increase  in  gratitude  as  it  increased  in 
Icn  ->wlcdge  ;  his  religion  or  his  worship  would  become  united  with 
bis  improvement  as  a  man  ;  any  employment  he  followed,  that 
had  connection  with  the  principles  of  the  creation,  as  every  thing 
of  agriculture,  of  science,  and  of  the  mechanical  arts,  has,  would 
teach  him  more  of  God,  and  of  the  gratitude  he  owes  to  him,  than 
tiny  theological  Christian  sermon  he  now  hears.  Great  objects 
inspire  great  thoughts  ;  great  munificence  excites  great  gratitude  ; 
tuvt  the  grovelling  tales  and  doctrines  of  the  Bible  and  the  Testa- 
ment are  fit  only  to  excite  contempt. 

Though  man  cannot  arrive,  at  least  in  this  life,  at  the  actual 
scene  I  have  described,  he  can  demonstrate  it  ;  because  he  has  a 
knowledge  of  the  principles  upon  which  the  creation  is  construct- 
ed. We  know  that  the  greatest  works  can  be  represented  in 
model,  and  that  the  universe  can  be  represented  by  the  same 
means.  The  same  principles  by  which  we  measure  an  inch,  or 
cm  acre  of  ground,  will  measure  to  millions  in  extent.  A  circle 


THE    AGE    OF    REASON.  151 

of  an  inch  diameter  has  the  same  geometrical  properties  as  a  cir- 
cle that  would  circumscribe  the  universe.  The  same  properties 
of  a  triangle  that  will  demonstrate  upon  paper  the  course  of  a 
ship,  will  do  it  on  the  ocean  ;  and  when  applied  to  what  are  call- 
ed the  heavenly  bodies,  will  ascertain  to  a  minute  the  time  of  an 
eclipse,  though  these  bodies  are  millions  of  miles  distant  from  us. 
This  knowledge  is  of  divine  origin  ;  and  it  is  from  the  Bible  of 
the  creation  that  man  has  learned  it,  and  not  from  the  stupid  Bi- 
ble of  the  church,  that  teacheth  man  nothing.* 

All  the  knowledge  man  has  of  science  and  of  machinery,  by  the 
aid  of  which  his  existence  is  rendered  comfortable  upon  earth,  and 
without  which  he  would  be  scarcely  distinguishable  in  appearance 
and  condition  from  a  common  animal,  comes  from  the  great  ma- 
chine and  structure  of  the  universe.  The  constant  and  unweari- 
ed observations  of  our  ancestors  upon  the  movements  and  revolu- 
tions of  the  heavenly  bodies,  in  what  are  supposed  to  have  been 
the  early  ages  of  the  world,  have  brought  this  knowledge  upon 
earth.  It  is  not  Moses  and  the  prophets,  nor  Jesus  Christ,  nor 
his  apostles,  that  have  done  it.  The  Almighty  is  the  great  me- 
chanic of  the  creation  ;  the  first  philosopher  and  original  teacher 
of  all  science  : — Let  us  then  learn  to  reverence  our  master,  and 
not  let  us  forget  the  labours  of  our  ancestors. 

Had  we  at  this  day  no  knowledge  of  machinery,  and  were  it 
possible  that  man  could  have  a  view,  as  I  have  before  described, 
of  the  structure  and  machinery  of  the  universe,  he  would  soon  con- 
ceive the  idea  of  constructing  some  at  least  of  the  mechanical 
works  we  now  have  ;  and  the  idea  so  conceived  would  progress- 
ively advance  in  practice.  Or  could  a  model  of  the  universe,  such 
as  is  called  an  orrery,  be  presented  before  him  and  put  in  motion, 
his  mind  would  arrive  at  the  same  idea.  Such  an  object  and  such 
a  subject  would,  whilst  it  improved  him  in  knowledge  useful  to 
himself  as  a  man  and  a  member  of  society,  as  well  as  entertain- 
ing, afford  far  better  matter  for  impressing  him  with  a  knowledge 
of,  and  a  belief  in  the  Creator,  and  of  the  reverence  and  gratitude 
that  man  owes  to  him,  than  the  stupid  texts  of  the  Bible  and  the 
Testament  from  which,  be  the  talents  of  the  preacher  what  they 

*  The  Bible-makers  have  undertaken  to  give  us,  in  the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  an 
account  of  the  creation  ;  and  in  doing  this,  they  have  demonstrated  nothing  but  theic 
ignorance.  They  make  there  to  have  been  three  days  and  three  mghts,  evenings  and 
mornings,  before  "there  was  a  sun ;  when  it.  is  the  presence  or  absence  of  die  sun  that  is 
the  cause  of  day  and  night — and  what  is  called  his  rising  and  setting,  that  of  morning 
and  evening.  Besides,  it  is  a  puerile  and  pitiful  idea,  to  suppose  the  Almighty  to  say, 
"  Let  there  be  light."  It  is  die  imperative  manner  of  speaking  that  a  conjuror  uses, 
when  he  says  to  his  cups  and  balls,  Presto,  be  gone — and  most  probably  has  been  taken 
from  it,  as  Moses  and  his  rod  are  ;>  conjuror  and  his  wand.  Longinus  calls  this  ex- 
pression the  sublime;  and  by  the  --nine  rule  the  conjuror  i.s  sublime  too;  for  the  man- 
ner of  sj>eaking  is  expressively  and  grammatically  the  .same.  When  authors  and  crit 
ics  talk  of  the  sublime,  they  see  not  how  nearly  it  borders  on  the  ridiculous.  The  sub 
lime  of  the  critics,  like  sojne  parts  of  Edmund  Burke's  sublime  and  beautiful,  is  like  » 
wind-mill  just  visible  in  a  fog,  which  imagination  ra-i^ht  distort  into  a  flying  mountain, 
or  an  archangel,  or  a  flock  of  wild  geese. 


152  THE    AGE    OF    REASON. 

may,  only  stupid  sermons  can  be  preached.  If  man  must  preach, 
let  him  preach  something  that  is  edifying,  and  from  texts  that  are 
known  to  be  true. 

The  Bible  of  the  creation  is  inexhaustible  in  texts.  Every  part 
of  science,  whether  connected  with  the  geometry  of  the  universe, 
with  the  systems  of  animal  and  vegetable  life,  or  with  the  proper- 
ties of  inanimate  matter,  is  a  text  as  well  for  devotion  as  for  phi- 
losophy— for  gratitude  as  for  human  improvement.  It  will,  per- 
haps, be  said,  that  if  such  a  revolution  in  the  system  of  religion 
takes  place,  every  preacher  ought  to  be  a  philosopher.-  —Most  cer- 
tainly ;  and  every  house  of  devotion  a  school  of  science. 

It  has  been  by  wandering  from  the  immutable  laws  of  science, 
and  the  right  use  of  reason,  and  setting  up  an  invented  thing  call- 
ed revealed  religion,  that  so  many  wild  and  blasphemous  conceits 
have  been  formed  of  the  Almighty.  The  Jews  have  made  him 
tho  assassin  of  the  human  species,  to  make  room  for  the  religion  of 
the  Jews.  The  Christians  have  made  him  the  murderer  of  him- 
saf,  and  the  founder  of  a  new  religion,  to  supersede  and  expel  the 
Jewish  religion.  And  to  find  pretence  and  admission  for  these 
tilings,  they  must  have  supposed  his  power  or  his  wisdom  imper- 
fect, or  his  will  changeable  ;  and  the  changeableness  of  the  will 
is  the  imperfection  of  the  judgment.  The  philosopher  knows  that 
the  laws  of  the  Creator  have  never  changed  with  respect  either  to 
the  principles  of  science,  or  the  properties  of  matter.  Why  then 
is  it  to  be  supposed  they  have  changed  with  respect  to  man  ? 

I  here  close  the  subject.  I  have  shown  in  all  the  forgoing 
parts  of  this  work,  that  the  Bible  and  Testament  are  impositions 
and  forgeries  ;  and  I  leave  the  evidence  I  have  produced  in  proof 
£>f  it  to  be  refuted,  if  any  one  can  do  it :  and  I  leave  the  ideas  that 
are  suggested  in  the  conclusion  of  the  work,  to  rest  on  the  mind 
of  the  reader  ;  certain  as  I  am,  that  when  opinions  are  free,  ei- 
ther in  matters  of  government  or  religion,  truth  will  finally  and 
powerfully  prevail 


END  OP  THE  AGE  OF  REASON SECOND  PART. 


BEING 

AN  ANSWER  TO  A  FRIEND, 

Olf  THE  PUBLICATION  OF 

THE  AGE  OF  REASON. 


Pom,  May  12,  1797. 

IN  your  letter  of  the  20th  of  March,  you  give  me  several  quo- 
tations from  the  Bible,  which  you  call  the  word  of  God,  to  show 
me  that  my  opinions  on  religion  are  wrong ;  and  I  could  give  you 
as  many,  from  the  same  book,  to  show  that  yours  are  not  right ; 
consequently,  then,  the  Bible  decides  nothing,  because  it  decides 
any  way,  and  every  way,  one  chooses  to  make  it. 

But,  by  what  authority  do  you  call  the  Bible  the  word  of  Godl 
for  this  is  the  first  point  to  be  settled.  It  is  not  your  calling  it  so 
that  makes  it  so,  any  more  than  the  Mahometans  calling  the  Koran 
the  word  of  God  makes  the  Koran  to  be  so.  The  Popish  Councils 
of  Nice  and  Laodicea,  about  350  years  after  the  time  that  the  per- 
son called  Jesus  Christ  is  said  to  have  lived,  voted  the  books,  that 
now  compose  what  is  called  the  New  Testament,  to  be  the  word 
of  God.  This  was  done  by  yeas  and  nays,  as  we  now  vote  a  law. 
The  Pharisees  of  the  second  Temple,  after  the  Jews  returned 
from  captivity  in  Babylon,  did  the  same  by  the  books  that  now 
compose  the  Old  Testament,  and  this  is  all  the  authority  there  is, 
which  to  me  is  no  authority  at  all.  I  am  as  capable  of  judging  for 
myself  as  they  were,  and  I  think  more  so,  because,  as  they  made  a 
living  by  their  religion,  they  had  a  self-interest  in  the  vote  they 
gave. 

You  may  have  an  opinion  that  a  man  is  inspired,  but  you  can- 
not prove  it,  nor  you  cannot  have  any  proof  of  it  yourself,  because 
you  cannot  see  into  his  mind  in  order  to  "know  how  he  comes  by 
his  thoughts,  and  the  same  ts  the  case  with  the  word  revelation. — 
There  can  be  no  evidence  of  such  a  thing,  for  you  ean  no  more 
prove  revelation,  than  you  can  prove  what  another  man  dreams  of, 
neither  can  he  pvove  it  himself. 


154  LETTER   TO    A   FRIEND. 

It  is  often  said  in  the  Bible  that  God  spake  unto  Moses  ;  but 
how  do  you  know  that  God  spake  unto  Moses?  Because, you  will 
say,  ,the  Bible  says  so.  The  Koran  says,  that  God  spake  unto 
Manornet  ;  do  you  believe  that  too?  No.  Why  not?  Because,  you 
will  say,  you  do  not  believe  it  ;  and  so,  because  you  do,  and  be- 
cause you  don't,  is. all  the  reason  you  can  give  for  believing  or  dis- 
believing, except  that  you  will  say  that  Mahomet  was  an  impostor. 
And  how  do  you  know  that  Moses  was  not  an  impostor?  For  my 
own  part,  I  believe  that  all  are  impostors  who  pretend  to  hold  ver- 
bal communication  with  the  Deity.  It  is  the  way  by  which  the 
world  has  been  imposed  upon  ;  but  if  you  think  otherwise  you  have 
the  same  right  to  your  opinion  that  I  have  to  mine,  and  must  an- 
swer for  it  in  the  same  manner.  But  all  this  does  not  settle  the  point, 
whether  the  Bible  be  the  word  cf  God,  or  not.  It  is  therefore  ne- 
cessary to  go  a  step  further.  The  case  then  is  : — 

You  form  your  opinion  of  God  from  the  account  given  of  him  in 
the  Bible  ;  and  I  form  rny  opinion  of  the  Bible  from  the  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  God,  manifested  in  the  structure  of  the  universe, 
and  in  all  the  works  of  the  Creation.  The  result  in  these  two  ca- 
ses will  be,  that  you,  by  taking  the  Bible  for  your  standard,  will 
have  a  bad  opinion  of  God  ;  and  I,  by  taking  God  for  my  standard, 
shall  have  a  bad  opinion  of  the  Bible. 

The  Bible  represents  God  to  be  a  changeable,  passionate,  vin- 
dictive being  :  making  a  world,  and  then  drowning  it,  afterwards 
repenting  of  what  he  bad  done,  and  promising  not  to  do  so  again. 
Setting  one  nation  to  cut  the  throats  of  another,  and  stopping  the 
course  of  the  sun  tijl  the  butchery  should  be  done.  But  the  works 
of  God  in  the  creation  preach  to  us  another  doctrine.  In  that  vast 
volume  we  see  nothing  to  give  us  the  idea  of  a  changeable,  pas- 
sionate, vindictive  God  ;  every  thing  we  there  behold  impresses 
us  with  a  contrary  idea;  that  of  unohangeableness  and  of  eternal 
order,  harmony,  and  goodness.  The  sun  and  the  seasons  return 
at  their  appointed  time,  and  every  thing  in  the  Creation  proclaims 
Jiat  God  is  unchangeable.  Now,  which  am  I  to  believe,  a  book 
that  any  impostor  may  make  and  call  the  word  of  God,  or  the  Cre- 
ation itself,  which  none  but  an  Almighty  Power  could  make,  for  the 
Bible  says  one  thing,  and  the  Creation  says  the  contrary.  The 
Bible  represents  God  with  all  the  passions  of  a  mortal,  and  the 
Creation  proclaims  him  with  all  the  attributes  of  a  God. 

It  is  from  the  Bible  that  man  has  learned  cruelty,  rapine,  and 
murder  ;  for  the  belief  of  a  cruel  God  makes  a  cruel  man.  That 
blood-thirsty  man,  called  the  prophet  Samuel,  makes  God  to  say, 
(1  Sam.  ch.  xv.  ver.  3,)  "Now  go  and  smite  Amalek,  and  utterly 
destroy  all  that  they  Have,  and  spare  them  not,  but  slay  both  man 
and  woman,  infant  and  suckling,  ox  and  sheep,  camel  and  ass." 

That  Samuel,  or  some  other  impostor,  might  say  this,  is  what, 
at  this  distance  of  time,  can  neither  b'e  proved  nor  disproved  ;  but 
in  my  opinion,  it  is  blasphemy  to  say,  or  to  believe,  that  God  said 


LETTER    TO    A    FRIEND.  155 

it.  All  our  ideas  of  the  justice  and  goodness  of  God  revolt  at  the 
impious  cruelty  of  the  Bible.  It  is  not  a  God,  just  and  good,  but 
a  devil,  under  the  name  of  God,  that  the  Bible  describes. 

What  makes  this  pretended  order  to  destroy  the  Amalekites  ap- 
pear the  worse,  is  the  reason  given  for  it.  The  Amalekites,  four 
hundred  years  before,  according  to  the  account  in  Exodous,  chap, 
17,  (but  which  has  the  appearance  of  fable  from  the  magical  ac- 
count it  gives  of  Moses  holding  up  his  hands)  had  opposed  the  Is- 
raelites coming  into  their  country  ;  and  this  the  Amalekites  had  a 
right  to  do,  because  the  Israelites  were  the  invaders,  as  the  Span- 
iards were  the  invaders  of  Mexico  ;  and  this  opposition  by  the  A- 
malekites,  at  that  time,  is  given  as  a  reason,  that  the  men,  women, 
infants  and  sucklings,  sheep  and  oxen,  camels  and  asses,  that  were 
born  four  hundred  years  afterwards,  should  be  put  to  death  ;  and 
to  complete  the  horror,  Samuel  hewed  Agag,  the  chief  of  the  A- 
malekites  in  pieces,  as  you  would  hew  a  stick  of  wood.  I  will  be- 
stow a  few  observations  on  this  case. 

In  the  first  place,  nobody  knows  who  the  author,  or  writer  of 
the  book  of  Samuel  was,  and  therefore  the  fact  itself  has  no  other 
proof  than  anonymous  or  hearsay  evidence,  which  is  no  evidence 
at  all.  In  the  second  place,  this  anonymous  book  says,  that  this 
slaughter  was  done  by  the  express  command  of  God  :  but  all  our 
ideas  of  the  justice  and  goodness  of  God  give  the  lie  to  the  book, 
and  I  never  will  believe  any  book  that  ascribes  cruelty  and  injus- 
tice to  God.  I  therefore  reject  the  Bible  as  unworthy  of  credit. 

As  I  have  now  given  you  my  reasons  for  believing  that  the  Bi- 
ble is  not  the  word  of  God,  and  that  it  is  a  falsehood,  I  have  a  righ. 
to  ask  you  your  reasons  for  believing  the  contrary  ;  but  I  know 
you  can  give  me  none,  except  that  you  were  educated  to  believe  the 
Bible  ;  and  as  the  Turks  give  the  same  reasons  for  believing  the 
Koran,  it  is  evident  that  education  makes  all  the  difference,  and 
that  reason  and  truth  have  nothing  to  do  in  the  case.  You  believe 
in  the  Bible  from  the  accident  of  birth,  and  the  Turks  believe  in 
the  Koran  from  the  same  accident,  and  each  calls  the  other  infi- 
del.— But  leaving  the  prejudice  of  education  out  of  the  case,  the 
unprejudiced  truth  is,  that  all  are  infidels  who  believe  falsely  of 
God,  whether  they  draw  their  creed  from  the  Bible,  or  from  the 
Koran,  from  the  Old  Testament  or  from  the  New. 

When  you  have  examined  the  Bible  with  the  attention  that  I 
have  done  (for  I  do  not  think  you  know  much  about  it)  and  permit 
yourself  to  have  just  ideas  of  God,  you  will  most  probably  believe 
as  I  do.  But  I  wish  you  to  know  that  this  answer  to  your  letter  is 
not  written  for  the  purpose  of  changing  your  opinion.  It  is  written 
to  satisfy  jou,  and  some  other  friends  whom  I  esteem,  that  my 
disbelief  of  the  Bible  is  founded  on  a  pure  and  religious  belief  in 
God ;  for  in  my  opinion,  the  Bible  is  a  gross  libel  against  the  jus- 
tice and  goodness  of  God,  in  almost  every  part  of  it. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 


LETTER 

TO  TIIE  HON.  T.  ERSKJNE, 

ON  TIIE  PROSECUTION  OF  THOMAS  WILLIAMS, 

FOB  FGBLUniffO 

THE  AGE  OF  RE4SOJT. 


TT3JL 


r 


'A 


INTRODUCTION. 


IT  is  a  matter  of  surprise  to  some  people  to  see  Mr.  Erskine 
act  as  counsel  for  a  crown  prosecution  commenced  against  the 
right  of  opinion :  I  confess  it  is  none  to  me,  notwithstanding  all 
that  Mr.  Erskine  has  said  before  ;  for  it  is  difficult  to  know 
when  a  lawyer  is  to  be  believed  ;  I  have  always  observed  that 
Mr.  Erskine,  when  contending  as  a  counsel  for  the  right  of  po- 
litical opinion,  frequently  took  occasions,  and  those  often  dragged 
in  head  and  shoulders,  to  lard,  what  he  called  the  British  Con- 
stitution, with  a  great  deal  of  praise.  Yet  the  same  Mr.  Ersk- 
ine said  to  me  in  conversation,  were  Government  to  begin  de 
novo  in  England,  they  never  would  establish  such  a  damned  ab- 
surdity (it  was  exactly  his  expression)  as  this  is.  Ought  I  then 
o  be  surprised  at  Mr.  Erskine  for  inconsistency  ? 

In  this  prosecution  Mr.  Erskine  admits  the  right  of  .controver- 
sy ;  but  says  the  Christian  religion  is  not  to  be  abused.  This  is 
somewhat  sophistical,  because,  while  he  admits  the  right  of  con- 
troversy, he  reserves  the  right  of  calling  that  controversy,  abuse  : 
and  thus,  lawyer-like,  undoes  by  one  word,  what  he  says  in  the 
other.  I  will,  however,  in  this  letter  keep  within  the  limits  he 
prescribes  ;  he  will  find  here  nothing  about  the  Christian  reli- 
gion :  he  will  find  only  a  statement  of  a  few  cases,  which  shows 
the  necessity  of  examining  the  books,  handed  to  us  from  the 
Jews,  in  order  to  discovei  if  we  have  not  been  imposed  upon  ; 
together  with  some  observations  on  the  manner  in  which  the  trial 
of  Williams  has  been  conducted.  If  Mr.  Erskine  denies  the 
right  of  examining  those  books,  he  had  better  profess  himself  at 
once  an  advocate  for  the  establishment  of  an  Inquisition,  and  the 
re-establishment  of  the  Star  Chamber. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 


LETTER,*  &c. 


OF  all  the  tyrannies  that  afflict  mankind,  tyranny  in  religion  is 
the  worst  :  Every  other  species  of  tyranny  is  limited  to  the 
world  we  live  in  ;  but  this  attempts  a  stride  beyond  the  grave, 
and  seeks  to  pursue  us  into  eternity.  It  is  there  and  not  here — 
it  is  to  God  and  not  to  man — it  is  to  a  heavenly  and  not  to  an 
earthly  tribunal  that  we  are  to  account  for  our  belief;  if  then  we 
believe  falsely  and  dishonourably  of  the  Creator,  and  that  belief 
is  forced  upon  us,  as  far  as  force  can  operate  by  hum.in  laws  and 
human  tribunals, — on  whom  is  the  criminality  of  that  belief  to 
fall  ?  on  those  who  impose  it,  or  on  those  on  whom  it  is  imposed  ? 

A  bookseller  of  the  name  of  Williams,  has  been  prosecuted  in 
London  on  a  charge  of  blasphemy,  for  publishing  a  book  intitled 
the  Age  of  Reason.  Blasphemy  is  a  word  of  vast  sound,  but 
equivocal  and  almost  indefinite  signification,  unless  we  confine 
it  to  the  simple  idea  of  hurting  or  injuring  the  reputation  of  any 
one,  which  was  its  original  meaning.  As  a  word,  it  existed  be- 
fore Christianity  existed,  being  a  Greek  word,  or  Greek  anglofi- 
ed,  as  all  the  etymological  dictionaries  will  show. 

But  behold  how  various  and  contradictory  has  been  the  signi- 
fication and  application  of  this  equivocal  word.  Socrates,  who 
lived  more  than  four  hundred  years  before  the  Christian  era, 
was  convicted  of  blasphemy,  for  preaching  against  the  belief  of  a 
plurality  of  gods,  and  for  preaching  the  belief  of  one  god,  and 
was  condemed  to  suffer  death  by  poison.  Jesus  Christ  was  con- 
victed of  blasphemy  under  the  Jewish  law,  and  was  crucified. 
Calling  Mahomet  an  impostor  would  be  blasphemy  in  Turkey  ; 
and  denying  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  and  the  Church  would 
be  blasphemy  at  Rome.  What  then  is  to  be  understood  by  this 
word  blasphemy  ?  We  see  that  in  the  case  of  Socrates  truth 
was  condemed  as  blasphemy.  Are  we  sure  that  truth  is  not 
blasphemy  in  the  present  day  ?  Wo,  however,  be  to  those  who 
make  it  so,  whoever  they  may  be. 

*  Mr.  Paine  has  evidently  incorporated  into  this  Letter  a  portion  of  his  answer  to 
Bishop  Watson's  "  Apology  for  the  Bible ;"  as  in  a  subsequent  chapter  of  that  work, 
treating  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  he  expressly  refers  to  his  remarks  in  a  preceding  part 
of  the  same,  on  the  two  accounts  of  the  creation  contained  in  that  book  ;  which  is  in- 
cluded in  this  letter. 


162  LETTER  TO  MR.  ERSIUNE. 

A  book  called  the  Bible  has  been  voted  by  men,  and  decreed 
by  human  laws  to  be  the  word  of  God  ;  and  the  disbelief  of  this 
is  called  blasphemy.  But  if  the  Bible  be  not  the  word  of  God, 
it  is  the  laws  and  the  execution  of  them  that  is  blasphemy,  and 
not  the  disbelief.  Strange  stories  are  told  of  the  Creator  in  that 
book.  He  is  represented  as  acting  under  the  influence  of  every 
human  passion,  even  of  the  most  malignant  kind.  If  these  sto- 
ries are  false,  we  err  in  believing  them  to  be  true,  and  ought 
not  to  believe  them.  It  is  therefore  a  duty  which  every  man 
owes  to  himself,  and  reverentially  to  his  Maker,  to  ascertain,  by 
every  possible  inquiry,  whether  there  be  sufficient  evidence  to 
believe  them  or  not. 

My  own  opinion  is  decidedly,  that  the  evidence  does  not  war- 
rant the  belief,  ami  that  we  sin  in  forcing  that  belief  upon  ourselves 
and  upon  others.  In  saying  this,  I  have  no  other  object  in  view 
than  truth.  But  that  1  may  not  be  accused  of  resting  upon  bare 
assertion  with  respect  to  the  equivocal  state  of  the  Bible,  I  will 
produce  an  example,  and  I  will  not  pick  and  cull  the  Bible  for 
the  purpose.  I  will  go  fairly  to  the  case  :  I  will  take  the  two 
first  chapters  of  Genesis  as  they  stand,  and  show  from  thence  the 
truth  of  what  I  say,  that  is,  that  the  evidence  does  not  warrant 
the  belief  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God. 


CHAPTER  I. 

1  In  the  beginning  God  created  the  heaven  and  the  earth. 

2  And  the  earth  was  without  form  and  void,  and  darkness  was 
upon  the  face  of  the  deep  ;  and  the  spirit  of  God  moved  upon  the 
face  of  the  waters. 

3  And  God  said,  Let  there  be  light  ;  and  there  was  light. 

4  And  God  saw  the  light,  that  it  was  good  ;  and  God  divided 
the  light  from  the  darkness. 

5  And  God  called  the  light  day,  and  the  darkness  he  called 
night  :  and  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  first  day. 

6  IT  And  God  said,  Let  there  be  a  firmament  in  the  midst  of 
the  waters,  and  let  it  divide  the  waters  from  the  waters. 

7  And  God  made  the  firmament,  and  divided  the  waters  which 
were  under  the  firmament,  from  tne  waters  which  were   above 
the  firmament  :  and  it  was  so. 

8  And  God  called  the  firmament  heaven  ;  and  the  evening  and 
the  morning  were  the  second  day. 

9  TT  And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  under  the  heaven  be  gather- 
ed together  unto  one  place,  and  let  the  dry  land  appear  :  and  it 
was  so. 

10  And  God  called  the  dry  land  earth,  and  the  gathering  toge- 
ther of  the  waters  called  he  seas  ;  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 


LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE.  163 

11  And  God  said,  let  the  earth  bring  forth  grass,  the  herb 
yielding    seed,  and  the  fruit-tree  yielding  fruit  after  his  kind, 
whose  seed  is  in  itself,  upon  the  earth  ;  and  it  was  so. 

12  And  the  earth  brought  forth  grass,  and  herb  yielding  seed 
after  his  kind,  and  the  tree  yielding  fruit,  whose   seed  was  in  it- 
self, after  his  kind  :  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

13  And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  third  day. 

14  IT  And  God  said,  Let  there  be  lights  in  the  firmament  of  the 
heaven,  to  divide  the  day   from  the  night  :  and  let  them  be  for 
signs,  and  for  seasons,  and  for  days,  and  years. 

15  And  let  them  be  for  lights  in  the  firmament  of  the  heaven, 
to  give  light  upon  the  earth  :  and  it  was  so. 

16  And  God  made  two  great  lights  ;  the  greater  light  to  rule 
the  day,  and  the  lesser  light  to  rule  the  night  :  he  made  the  stars 
also. 

17  And  God  set  them  in  the  firmament  of  the  heaven,  to  give 
light  upon  the  earth, 

1 8  And  to  rule  over  the  day  and  over  the  night,  and  to  divide 
the  light  from  the  darkness  ;  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

19  And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  fourth  day. 

20  And  God  said,  Let  the  waters  bring  forth  abundantly  the 
moving  creature  that  hath  life,  and  fowl  that  may. fly  above  the 
earth  in  the  open  firmament  of  heaven. 

21  And  God  created  great  whales,  and  every  living  creature 
that  moveth,  which  the  waters   brought  forth   abundantly  after 
their  kind,  and  every  winged  fowl  after  his  kind  ;  and  God  saw 
that  it  was  good. 

22  And  God  blessed  them,  saying,   Be  fruitful,  and  multiply, 
and  fill  the  waters  in  the  seas,  and  let  fowl  multiply  in  the  earth. 

23  And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  fifth  day. 

24  IT  And  God  said,  Let  the  earth  bring  forth  the  living  crea- 
ture aftor  his  kind,  cattle,  and  creeping  thing,  and  beast  of  the 
earth  after  his  kind  :  and  it  was  so. 

25  And  God  made  the  beast  of  the  earth  after  his  kind,  and 
cattle   after  their  kind,  and  every  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the 
earth  after  his  kind  ;  and  God  saw  that  it  was  good. 

26  IT  And  God  said,  Let  us  make  man  in  our  image,  after  our 
likeness  :  and  let  them  have  dominion  over  theffish  of  the  sea, 
and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  over  the  cattle,  and  over  all  the 
earth,   and  over  every  creeping  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the 
earth. 

27  So   God  created  man  in  his  own  image,  in  the  image  of  God 
created  he  him:   male  and  female  created  he  them. 

28  And  God  blessed  them,  and   God  said  unto  them,  Be  fruitful, 
and  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it  ;  and  have  do- 
minion over  thejish  of  the  sea,  and  over  the  fowl  of  the  air,  and  over 
every  living  thing  that  moveth  upon  the  earth. 


164  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE. 

29  IT  And  God   said,  Behold,  I  have  given  you  every  herb 
oearing  seed,  which  is-  upon  the  face  of  all  the  earth,  and  every 
tree,  in  which  is  the  fruit  of  a  tree  yielding  seed  :  to  you  it  shall 
be  for  meat. 

30  And  to  every  beast  of  the  earth,  and  to  every  fowl   of  the 
air,  and  to  every  thing  that  creepeth  upon  the   earth,  wherein 
there  is  life,  I  have  given  every  green  herb  for  meat :    and  it 
was  so. 

31  And  God  saw  every  thing  that  he  had  made,  and  behold  it 
was  very  good.     And  the  evening  and  the  morning  were  the  sixth 
day. 


CHAPTER  II. 

1  Thus  the  heavens  and  the  earth  were  finished,  and  all  the 
host  of  them. 

2  And  on  the  seventh  day  God  ended  his  work  which  he  had 
made,  and  he  rested  on  the  seventh  day  from  all  his  work  which 
he  had  made. 

3  And  God  blessed  the  seventh  day  and  sanctified  it :   because 
that  in  it  he  had  rested  from,  all  his  work,  which  God  created  and 
made. 

4  IF  These  are  the  generations  of  the  heavens  and  of  the  earth, 
when  they  were  created ;  in  the  day  that  the  Lord  God  made 
the  earth  and  the  heavens, 

5  And  every  plant  of  the  field,  before  it  was  in  the  earth,  and 
every  herb  of  the  field,  before  it  grew  ;    for  the  Lord   God  had 
not  caused  it  to  rain  upon  the  earth,  and  there  was  not  a  man  to 
till  the  ground. 

6  But  there  went  up  a  mist  from  the  earth,  and  watered  the 
whole  face  of  the  ground. 

7  And  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the  dust  of  the  ground, 
and  breathed  into  his  nostrils  the  breath  of  life  ;  and  man  be- 
came a  living  soul. 

8  And  the  Lord  God  planted  a  garden  eastward  of  Eden  ;  and 
there  he  put  the  man  whom  he  had  formed. 

9  And  out  of  the  ground  made  the   Lord  God  to  grow  every 
tree  that  is  pleasant  to  the  sight,  and  good  for  food  ;  the  tree  of 
life  also  in  the  midst  of  the  garden,  and  the  tree  of  knowledge  of 
good  and  evil. 

10  And  a  river  went   out  of  Eden  to  water  the  garden  :  and 
from  thence  it  was  parted,  and  became  into  four  heads. 

11  The  name  of  the  first  is  Pison  :  that  is  it  which  compass- 
eth  the  whole  land  of  Havilah,  where  there  is  gold. 

12  And  the  gold  of  that  land  is  good  :  there  is  bdellium  and 
;he  onyx-stone. 


LETTER  TO    MR.    ERSKINE.  165 

13  And  the  name  of  the  second  river  is  Gibon  :    the  same   is 
it  that  compasseth  the  whole  land  of  Ethiopia. 

14  And  the  name  of  the  third  river  is  Heddekel  :  that  is  it 
which  goeth  toward  the  east  of  Assyria.     And  the  fourth  river  is 
Euphrates. 

15  And  the  Lord  God  took  the  man,  and  put  him  into  the  gar- 
den of  Eden,  to  dress  it  and  to  keep  it. 

16  And  the  Lord  God  commanded  the  man,  saying,  Of  every 
tree  of  the  garden  thou  mayest  freely  eat  : 

17  But  of  the  tree  of  knowledge  of  good  and  evil,  thou  shalt 
not  eat  of  it ;  for  in  the  day  that  thou  eatest  thereof,  thou  shalt 
surely  die. 

18  IF  And  the  Lord   God   said,  It  is  not  good   that  the  man 
should  be  alone  :  I  will  make  him  an  help  meet  for  him. 

19  And  out  of  the  ground  the  Lord  God  formed  every  beast 
of  the  field,  and  every  fowl  of  the  air,  and  brought  them  unto 
Adam,  to  see  what  he  would  call  them  ;  and  whatsoever  Adam 
called  every  living  creature,  that  was  the  name  thereof. 

20  And  Adam  gave  names  to  all  cattle,  and  to  the  fowl  of  the 
air,  and  to  every  beast  of  the  field  ;  but  for  Adam  there  was  not 
found  an  help  meet  for  him. 

21  And  the  Lord  God  caused  a  deep  sleep  to  fall  upon  Adam, 
and  he  slept  ;  and  he  took  one  of  his  ribs,   and  closed  up  the 
flesh  instead  thereof. 

22  And  the  rib  which  the  Lord  God  had  taken  from  man,  made 
he  a  woman,  and  brought  her  unto  the  man. 

23  And  Adam  said,  this  is  now  bone  of  my  bone,  and  flesh  of 
my  flesh  ;  she  shall  be  called  woman,  because  she  was  taken  out 
of  man. 

24  Therefore  shall  a  man  leave  his  father  and  his  mother,  and 
shall  cleave  unto  his  wife  ;  and  they  shall  be  one  flesh. 

25  And  they  were  both  naked,  the  man  and  his  wife,  and  were 
not  ashamed. 


These  two  chapters  are  called  the  Mosaic  account  of  the 
creation  ;  and  we  are  told,  nobody  knows  by  whom,  that  Moses 
was  instructed  by  God  to  write  that  account. 

It  has  happened  that  every  nation  of  people  has  been  world- 
makers  ;  and  each  makes  the  world  to  begin  his  own  way,  as  if 
they  had  all  been  brought  up,  as  Hudibras  says,  to  the  trade. 
There  are  hundreds  of  different  opinions  and  traditions  how  the 
world  began.*  My  business,  however,  in  this  place,  is  only  with 
those  two  chapters. 

*  In  this  world-making  trade,  man,  of  course,  lias  held  a  conspicuous  place  ;  and, 
for  the  gratification  of  the  curious  inquirer,  the  editor  subjoins  two  specimens  of  the 
opinions  of  learned  men,  in  regard  to  the  manner  of  his  formation,  and  of  his  subse- 
quent fall.  The  first  he  extracts  from  tho  Talmud,  a  work  containing  the  Jewish 


166  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINfc. 

I  begin  then  by  saying,  that  those  two  chapters,  instead  of  con- 
taining, as  has  been  believed,  one  continued  account  of  the  crea- 
tion, written  by  Moses,  contain  two  different  and  contradictory 
stories  of  a  creation,  made  by  two  different  persons,  and  written  in 
two  different  styles  of  expression.  The  evidence  that  shows  this 
is  so  clear  when  attended  to  without  prejudice,  that,  did  we  meet 
with  the  same  evidence  in  any  Arabic  or  Chinese  account  of  a 
creation,  we  should  not  hesitate  in  pronouncing  it  a  forgery. 

I  proceed  to  distinguish  the  two  stories  from  each  other. 

The  first  story  begins  at  the  first  verse  of  the  first  chapter,  and 
ends  at  the  end  of  the  third  verse  of  the  second  chapter  ;  for  the 
adverbial  conjunction,  THUS,  with  which  the  second  chapter  be- 
gins (as  the  reader  will  see,)  connects  itself  to  the  last  verse  of  the 
first  chapter,  and  those  three  verses  belong  to,  and  make  the  con- 
clusion of  the  lirst  story. 

The  second  story  begins  at  the  fourth  verse  of  the  second  chap- 
ter, and  ends  with  that  chapter.  Those  two  stories  have  been 
confused  into  one,  by  cutting  off  the  three  last  verses  of  the  first 
story,  and  throwing  them  to  the  second  chapter. 

I  go  now  to  show  that  those  stories  have  been  written  by  two 
different  persons. 

traditions,  the  rabbinical  constitutions,  and  explication  of  the  law  ;  and  is  of  great 
authority  among  the  Jews.  It  was  composed  by  certain  learned  rabbins,  compre- 
hends twelve  bulky  folios,  and  forty  years  are  said  to  have  been  consumed  in  its  com- 
pilation. In  fact,  it  is  deemed  to  contain  the  whole  body  of  divinity  for  the  Jewish 
nation.  Although  the  Scriptures-  tell  us  that  the  Lord  God  formed  man  of  the 
dust  of  the  ground,  they  do  not  explain  the  manner  in  which  it  was  done,  and  these 
doctors  supply  the  deficiency  as  follows  : — 

"  Adam's  body  was  made  of  the  earth  of  Babylon,  his  head  of  the  land  of  Israel, 
his  other  members  of  other  parts  of  the  world.  R.  Meir  thought  he  was  compact  of 
the  earth,  gathered  out  of  the  whole  earth  ;  as  it  is  written,  tftine  eyes  did  see  my 
substance.  Now  it  is  elsewhere  written,  the  eyes  of  the  Lord  are  over  all  the 
earth.  R.  Aha  expiessly  marks  the  twelve  hours  in  which  his  various  parts  were 
formed.  His  stature  was  from  one  end  of  the  world  to  the  other;  and  it  was  for  his 
transgression  that  the  Creator,  laying  his  hand  in  anger  on  him,  lessened  him  ;  for 
before,  says  R.  Eleazer,  with  his  hand  he  reached  the  firmament.  R.  Jehuda  thinks 
his  sin  was  heresy  ;  but  R.  Isaac  thinks  it  was  nourishing  his  foreskin." 

The  Mahometan  savans  give  the  following  account  of  the  same  transaction  : 

"  When  God  wished  to  create  man  he  sent  the  angel  Gabriel  to  take  a  handful  of 
each  of  the  seven  beds  which  composed  the  earth.  But  when  the  latter  heard  the  or- 
der of  God,  she  felt  much  alarmed,  and  requested  the  heavenly  messenger  to  represent 
to  God,  that  as  the  creature  he  was  about  to  form  might  chance  to  rebel  one  day 
against  him,  this  wo.-ild  be  the  means  of  bringing  upon  herself  the  divine  malediction. 
God,  however,  far  from  listening  to  this  request,  despatched  two  other  angels,  Michael 
and  Azrael,  to  execute  his  will ;  but  they,  moved  with  compassion,  were  prevailed 
upon  again  to  lay  the  complaints  of  the  earth  at  the  feet  of  her  author.  Then  God 
confined  the  execution  of  his  commands  to  the  formidable  Azrael  alone,  wlm,  regard- 
less of  all  the  earth  might  say,  violently  tore  from  her  bosom  seven  handfuls  from  her 
various  strata,  and  carried  them  into  Arabia,  where  the  work  of  creation  was  to  be 
completed.  As  (b  Azrael,  God  was  so  well  pleased  with  the  decisive  manner  in 
which  he  had  acted,  that  he  gave  him  the  office  of  separating  the  soul  from  the  body, 
whence  he  is  called  the  Angel  of  Death. 

Meanwhile,  the  angels  having  kneaded  this  earth,  God  moulded  it  with  his  own 
hands,  and  left  it  some  time  that  it  might  get  dry.  The  angels  delighted  to  gaze  upon 
the  lifeless,  but  beautiful  mass,  with  the  exception  of  Eblis,or  Lucifer,  who,  bent  upon 
evil,  struck  it  upon  the  stomach,  which  giving  a  hollow  sound,  he  said,  since  thia 


LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE.  167 

FVom  the  first  verse  of  the  first  chapter  to  the  end  of  the  3d 
verse  of  the  second  chapter,  which  makes  the  whole  of  the  first 
story,  the  word  GOD  is  used  without  any  epithet  or  additional 
word  conjoined  with  it,  as  the  reader  will  see  :  and  this  style  of 
expression  is  invariably  used  throughout  the  whole  of  this  story, 
and  is  repeated  no  less  than  thirty-live  times,  viz.  "In  the  begin- 
ning GOD  created  the  heavens  and  the  earth,  and  the  spirit  of  GOD 
moved  on  the  face  of  the  waters,  and  GOD  said,  let  there  be  light, 
and  GOD  saw  the  light,  SLC.  &c. 

But  immediately  from  the  beginning  of  the  fourth  verse  of  the 
second  chapter,  where  the  second  story  begins,  the  style  of  ex- 
pression is  always  the  Lord  God,  and  this  style  of  expression  is 
invariably  used  to  the  end  of  the  chapter,  and  is  repeated  eleven 
times ;  in  the  one  it  is  always  GOD,  and  never  the  Lord  God  ; 
in  the  other  it  is  always  the  Lord  God,  and  never  GOD. — The 
first  story  contains  thirty-four  verses,  and  repeats  the  single  word 
GOD  thirty-five  times.  The  second  story  contains  twenty-two 
verses,  and  repeats  the  compound  word  Lord-God  eleven  times  ; 
this  difference  of  style,  so  often  repeated,  and  so  uniformly  con- 
tinued, shows,  that  those  two  chapters,  containing  two  different 
stories,  are  written  by  different  persons  :  it  is  the  same  in  all  the 
different  editions  of  the  Bible,  in  all  the  languages  I  have  seen. 

Having  thus  shown,  from  the  difference  of  style,  that  those  two 
chapters  divided,  as  they  properly  divide  themselves,  at  the  end 
of  the  third  verse  of  the  second  chapter,  are  the  work  of  two  dif- 

creature  will  be  hollow,  it  will  often  need  being  filled,  and  will  be,  therefore,  exposed 
to  pregnant  temptations.  Upon  this,  he  asked  the  angels  how  (hey  would  act  if  God 
wished  to  render  them  dependent  upon  this  sovereign  which  lie  w;is  about  to  give  to 
the  earth.  They  readily  answered  that  they  would  obey  ;  but  although  Eblis  did 
not  openly  dissent,  he  resolved  within  himself  that  lie  would  not  follow  their  example. 

After  the  body  of  the  first  man  had  been  properly  prepared,  Cod  animated  it  with 
an  intelligent  soul,  and  clad  him  in  splendid  and  marvellous  garments,  suited  to  the 
dignity  of  this  favoured  being.  He  now1  commanded  his  angels  to  fall  prostrate  be- 
fore Adam.  All  of  them  obeyed,  with  the  exception  of  Eblis,  who  was  in  conse- 
quence immediately  expelled  from  heaven,  and  hi.s  place  given  to  Adam. 

The  formation  of  Eve  from  one  of  the  ribs  of  the  first  man,  is  the  same  as  that  re- 
corded in  the  Rible,  as  is  also  the  order  given  to  the  father  of  mankind,  not  to  taste 
the  fruit  of  a  particular  tree.  Eblis  seized  this  opportunity  of  revenge.  Having  asso- 
ciated the  peacock  and  the  serpent  in  the  enterprize,  they  by  their  wily  speeches  at 
length  persuaded  Adam  to  become  guilty  of  disobedience.  But  no  sooner  had  they 
touched  the  forbidden  fruit,  than  their  garments  dropped  on  the  ground,  and  the  sight 
of  their  nakedness  covered  them  both  with  shame  and  with  confusion.  They  made  a 
covering  for  their  body  with  fig  leaves  ;  but  they  were  both  immediately  condemned  to 
labour,  and  to  die,  and  hurled  down  from  Paradise. 

Adam  fell  upon  the  mountain  of  Sarendip,  in  the  island  of  Ceylon,  where  a  moun- 
tain is  called  by  his  name  to  the  present  day.  Eve  being  separated  from  her  spouse 
in  her  fall,  alighted  on  the  spot  where  China  now  stands,  and  Eblis  fell  not  far  from 
the  same  spot.  As  to  the  peacock  and  the  snake,  the  former  dropped  in  Hindostan, 
and  the  latter  in  Arabia.  Adam  soon  feeling  the  enormity  of  Iris  fault,  implored  the 
mercy  of  God,  who  relenting,  sent  down  his  angels  from  heaven  with  a  tabernacle, 
which  they  placed  on  the  spot  where  Abraham,  at  a  subsequent  period,  buiit  the  tem- 
ple of  Mecca.  Gabriel  instructed  him  in  the  rites  and  ceremonies  performed  about 
the  sanctuary,  in  order  that  he  might  obtain  the  forgiveness  of  his  offence,  and  after- 
wards led  him  to  the  mountain  of  Ararat,  where  he  met  Eve,  from  whom  he  had  been 
now  separated  above  two  hundred  years. 


168  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE. 

ferent  persons,  I  come  to  show,  from  the  contradictory  matters 
they  contain,  that  they  cannot  be  the  work  of  one  person,  and  are 
two  different  stories. 

It  is  impossible,  unless  the  writer  was  a  lunatic,  without  mem- 
ory, that  one  and  the  same  person  could  say,  as  is  said  in  the  27th 
and  28th  verses  of  the  first  chapter — "So  God  created  man  in  his 
own  image,  in  the  image  of  God  created  he  him  •  male  and  female 
created  he  them  :  and  God  blessed  them,  and  God  said  unto  them, 
be  fruitful  and  multiply,  and  replenish  the  earth,  and  subdue  it,  and 
have  dominion  over  the  fish  of  the  sea,  arid  over  the  fowls  of  the  air, 
and  every  living  thing  ft  at  moveth  on  the  face  of  the  earth."  It  is,  I 
say,  impossible  that  the  same  person,  who  said  this,  could  after- 
wards say,  as  is  said  in  the  second  chapter,  ver.  5,  and  there  was 
not  a  man  to  till  the  ground  ;  and  then  proceed  in  the  7th  verse  to 
give  another  account  of  the  making  a  man  for  the  first  time,  and 
afterwards  of  the  making  a  woman  out  of  his  rib. 

Again,  one  and  the  same  person  could  not  write,  as  is  written 
in  the  29th  verse  of  the  first  chapter  ;  "Behold  I  (God)  have  giv- 
en you  every  herb  bearing  seed,  which  is  on  the  face  of  the  earth; 
and  every  tree,  in  which  is  the  fruit  of  a  tree  bearing  seed,  to  you 
it  shall  be  for  meat,"  and  afterwards  say,  as  is  said  in  the  second 
chapter,  that  the  Lord-God  planted  a  tree  in  the  midst  of  a  gar- 
den, and  forbad  man  to  eat  thereof. 

Again,  one  and  the  same  person  could  not  say,  "  Thus  tJie  heav- 
ens and  the  earth  were  finished,  and  all  the  host  of  them,  and  on  the 
seventh  day  God  ended  his  work  which  he  had  made;"  and  shortly 
after  set  the  Creator  to  work  again,  to  plant  a  garden,  to  make  a 
man  and  a  woman,  &c.  as  is  done  in  the  second  chapter. 

Here  are  evidently  two  different  stories  contradicting  each 
other. — According  to  the  first,  the  two  sexes,  the  male  and  the 
female,  mere  made  at  the  same  time.  According  to  the  second, 
they  were  made  at  different  times;  the  man  first,  the  woman  af- 
terwards.— According  to  the  first  story,  they  were  to  have  domin- 
ion over  all  the  earth.  According  to  the  second,  their  dominion 
was  limited  to  a  garden.  How  large  a  garden  it  could  be,  that 
one  man  and  one  woman  could  dress  and  keep  in  order,  I  leave 
to  the  prosecutor,  the  judge,  the  jury,  and  Mr.  Erskine  to  de- 
termine. 

The  story  of  the  talking  serpent,  and  its  tete-a-tete  with  Eve  : 
the  doleful  adventure,  called  the  Fall  of  Man:  and  how  he  was 
turned  out  of  this  fine  garden,  and  how  the  garden  was  afterwards 
locked  up  and  guarded  by  a  flaming  sword  (if  any  one  can  tell 
what  a  flaming  sword  is,)  belong  altogether  to  the  second  story. 
They  have  no  connection  with  the  first  story.  According  to  the 
first  there  was  no  garden  of  Eden  ;  no  forbidden  tree:  the  scene 
was  the  whole  earth,  and  the  fruit  of  all  the  trees  was  allowed  to  be 
eaten. 

In  giving  this  example  of  the  strange  state  of  the  Bible,  it  can- 


LETTER    TO    MR.    ERSKINE.  169 

not  be  said  I  have  gone  out  of  my  way  to  seek  it,  for  I  have  tak- 
en the  beginning  of  the  book  ;  nor  can  it  be  said  I  have  made, 
more  of  it,  than  it  makes  of  itself.  That  there  are  two  stories  is 
as  visible  to  the  eye,  when  attended  to,  as  that  there  are  two  chap- 
ters, and  that  they  have  been  written  by  different  persons,  nobody 
knows  by  whom.  If  this,  then,  is  the  strange  condition  the  be"- 
ginning  of  flie  Bible  is  in,  it  leads  to  a  just  suspicion,  that  the  oth- 
er parts  are  no  better,  and  consequently  it  becomes  every  man's 
duty  to  examine  the  case.  I  have  done  it  for  myself,  and  am  sat- 
isfied that  the  Bible  is  fabulous. 

Perhaps  I  shall  be  told  in  the  cant-language  of  the  day,  as  I 
have  often  been  told  by  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff  and  others,  of  the 
great  and  laudable  pains,  that  many  pious  and  leaded  men  have 
taken  to  explain  the  obscure,  and  reconcile  the  contradictory,  or 
as  they  say,  the  seemingly  contradictory  passages  of  the  Bible.  It 
is  because  the  Bible  needs  such  an  undertaking,  that  is  one  of  the 
first  causes  to  suspect  it  is  NOT  the  word  of  {rod  :  this  single  re- 
flection, when  carried  home  to  the  mind,  is  in  itself  a  volume. 

What !  does  not  the  Creator  of  the  Universe,  the  Fountain  of 
all  Wisdom,  the  Origin  of  all  Science,  the  Author  of  all  Know- 
ledge, the  God  of  Order  and  of  Harmony,  know  how  to  write  ? 
When  we  contemplate  the  vast  economy  of  the  creation  ;  when 
we  behold  the  unerring  regularity  of  the  visible  solar  system,  the 
perfection  with  which  all  its  several  parts  revolve,  and  by  corres- 
ponding assemblage,  form  a  whole  ; — when  we  launch  our  eye  in- 
to the  boundless  ocean  of  space,  and  see  ourselves  surrounded  by 
innumerable  worlds,  not  one  of  which  varies  from  its  appointed 
place — when  we  trace  the  power  of  a  Creator,  from  a  mite  to  an 
elephant — from  an  atom  to  an  universe — can  we  suppose  that  the 
mind  that  could  conceive  such  a  design,  and  the  power  that  exe- 
cuted it  with  incomparable  perfection,  cannot  write  without  incon- 
sistency ;  or  that  a  book  so  written  can  be  the  work  of  such  a 
power  ?  The  writings  of  Thomas  Paine,  even  of  Thomas  Paine, 
need  no  commentator  to  explain,  expound,  arrange,  and  re-arrange 
their  several  parts,  to  render  them  intelligible — he  can  relate  a 
fact,  or  write  an  essay,  without  forgetting  in  one  page  what  he  has 
written  in  another — certainly  then,  did  the  God  of  all  perfection 
condescend  to  write  or  dictate  a  book,  that  book  would  be  as  per- 
fect as  himself  is  perfect  :  the  Bible  is  not  so,  and  it  is  confess- 
edly not  so,  by  the  attempts  to  amend  it. 

Perhaps  I  shall  be  told,  that  though  I  have  produced  one  in- 
stance, I  cannot  produce  another  of  equal  force.  One  is  suffi- 
cient to  call  in  question  the  genuineness  or  authenticity  of  any 
book  that  pretends  to  be  the  word  of  God  ;  for  such  a  book  would, 
as  before  said,  be  as  perfect  as  its  author-  is  perfect. 

I  will,  however,  advance  only  four  chapters  further  into  the 
book  of  Genesis,  and  produce  another  example  that  is  sufficient 
to  invalidate  the  story  to  which  it  belongs 
15 


170     „  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE. 

We  have  all  heard  of  Noah's  Flood  ;  and  it  is  impossible  to  Jiink 
of  the  whole  human  race,  men,  women,  children,  and  infants  (ex- 
cept one  family)  deliberately  drowning,  without  feeling  a  painful 
sensation  ;  that  heart  must  be  a  heart  of  flint  that  can  contemplate 
such  a  scene  with. tranquillity.  There  is  nothing  in  the  ancient 
mythology,  nor  in  the  religion  of  any  people  we  know  of  upon 
the  globe,  that  records  a  sentence  of  their  God,  or  of  ttieir  Gods, 
so  tremendously  severe  and  merciless.  If  ihe  story  be  not  true, 
we  blasphemously  dishonour  God  by  believing  it,  and  still  more 
so,  in  forcing,  by  laws  and  penalties,  that  belief  upon  others.  I 
go  now  to  show  from  the  face  of  the  story,  that  it  carries  the  evi- 
dence of  not  being  true. 

I  know  not  i^he  judge,  the  jury,  and  Mr.  Erskine,  who  tried 
and  convicted  Williams,  ever  read  the  Bible,  or  know  any  thing 
of  its  contents,  and  therefore  I  will  state  the  case  precisely. 

There  were  no  such  people  as  Jews  or  Israelites,  in  the  time 
that  Noah  is  said  to  have  lived,  and  consequently  there  was  no 
such  law  as  that  which  is  called  the  Jewish  or  Mosaic  Law.  It 
is,  according  to  the  Bible,  more  than  six  hundred  years  from  the 
time  the  flood  is  said  to  have  happened,  to  the  time  of  Moses,  and 
consequently  the  time  the  flood  is  said  to  have  happened,  was  more 
than  six  hundred  years  prior  to  the  law,  called  the  law  of  Moses, 
even  admitting-  Moses  to  have  been  the  giver  of  that  law,  of  which 
there  is  great  cause  to  doubt. 

We  have  here  two  different  epochs,  or  points  of  time  ;  that  of 
the  flood,  and  that  of  the  law  of  Moses;  the  former  more  than  six 
hundred  years  prior  to  the  latter.  But  the  maker  of  the  story  of 
the  flood,  whoever  he  was,  has  betrayed  himself  by  blundering,  for 
he  has  reversed  the  order  of  the  times.  He  has  told  the  story,  as 
if  the  law  of  Moses  was  prior  to  the  flood  ;  for  he  has  made  God 
to  say  to  Noah,  Genesis,  chap.  vii.  ver.  2,  "Of  every  clean  beast, 
thou  shalt  take  unto  thee  by  sevens,  male  and  his  female,  and  of 
beasts  that  are  not  clean  by  two,  the  male  and  his  female."  This 
is  the  Mosaic  law,  and  could  only  be  said  after  that  law  was  given, 
not  before.  There  was  no  such  things  as  beasts  clean  and  un- 
clean in  the  time  of  Noah — It  is  no  where  said  they  were  created 
so.— They  were  only  declared  to  be  so,  "as  meats,  by  the  Mosaic 
law,  and  that  to  the  Jews  only,  and  there  was  no  such  people  as 
Jews  in  the  time  of  Noah.  This  is  the  blundering  condition  in 
which  this  strange  story  stands. 

When  we  reflect  on  a  sentence  so  tremendously  severe,  as  that 
of  consigning  the  whole  human  race,  eight  persons-  excepted,  to 
deliberate  drowning  ;  a  sentence,  which  represents  the  Creator 
in  a  more  merciless  character  than  any  of  those  whom  we  call  Pa- 
gans, ever  represented  the  Creator  to  be,  under  the  figure  of  any 
of  their  deities,  we  ought  at  least  to  suspend  our  belief  of  it,  on  a 
comparison  of  the  beneficent  character  of  the  Creator*  with  the 
tremendous  severity  of  the  sentence  ;  but  when  we  see  the  story; 


LETTER   TO   MR.    ERSKINE.  171 

told  with  such  an  evident  contradiction  of  circumstances,  we  ought 
to  set  it  down  for  nothing  better  than  a  Jewish  fable,  told  by  no- 
body knows  whom,  and  nobody  knows  when. 

It  is  a  relief  to  the  genuine  and  sensible  soul  of  man  to  find  the 
story  unfounded.  It  frees  us  from  two  painful  sensations  at  qnce; 
that  of  having  hard  thoughts  of  the  Creator,  on  account  of  the  se- 
verity of  the  sentence  ;  and  that  of  sympathising  in  the  horrrid  tra- 
gedy of  a  drowning  world.  He  who  cannot  feel  the  force  of  what 
I  mean,  is  not,  in  my  estimation  of  character,  worthy  the  name  of 
a  human  being. 

I  have  just  said  there  is  great  cause  to  doubt,  if  the  law,  called 
the  law  %of  Moses,  was  given  by  Moses  ;  the  books,  called  the 
books  of  Moses,  which  contain  among  other  things,  what  is  called 
the  Mosaic  law,  are  put  in  front  of  the  Bible,  in  the  manner  of  a 
constitution,  with  a  history  annexed  to  it.  Had  these  books  been 
written  by  Moses,  they  would  undoubtedly  have  been  the  oldest 
books  in  the  Bible,  and  "entitled  to  be  placed  first,  and  the  law  and 
the  history  they  contain,  would  be  frequently  referred  to  in  the 
books  that  follow  ;  but  this  is  not  the  case.  From  the  time  of 
Othniel  the  first  of  the  judges  (Judges,  chap.  iii.  ver.  9.)  to  the 
end  of  the  book  of  Judges,  which  contains  a  period  of  four  hun- 
dred and  ten  years,  this  law,  and  those  books,  were  not  in  practice, 
nor  known  among  the  Jews,  nor  are  they  so  much  as  alluded  to 
throughout  the  whole  of  that  period.  And  if  the  reader  will  ex- 
amine the  22d  and  23d  chapters  of  the  2d  book  of  Kings,  and  34th 
chapter  2d  Chron.  he  will  find  that  no  such  law,  nor  any  such 
books  were  known  in  the  time  of  the  Jewish  monarchy,  and  that 
the  Jews  were  Pagans  during  the  whole  of  that  time,  and  of  their 
judges. 

The  first  time  the  law,  called  the  law  of  Moses,,  made  its  ap- 
pearance, was  in  the  time  of  Josiah,  about  a  thousand  years  after 
Moses  was  dead  ;  it  is  then  said  to  have  been  found  by  accident. 
The  account  of  this  finding,  or  pretended  finding,  is  given,  2d 
Chron.  chap,  xxxiv.  ver.  14, 15, 16,  18:  "Hilkiah  the  priest  found 
the  book  of  the  law  of  the  Lord,  given  by  Moses  ;  and  Hilkiah  an- 
swered and  said  to  Shaphan  the  scribe,  I  have  found  the  book  of 
the  law  in  the  house  of  the  Lord  ;  and  Hilkiah  delivered  the  book 
to  Shaphan,  and  carried  the  book  to  the  king,  and  Shaphan  told 
the  king  (Josiah)  saying,  Hilkiah  the  priest  hath  given  me  a 
book." 

In  consequence  of  this  finding,  which  much  resembles  that  of 
poor  Chatterton  finding  manuscript  poems  of  Rowley  the  Monk, 
in  the  Cathedral  church  at  Bristol,  or  the  late  finding  of  manu- 
scripts of  Shakespeare  in  an  old  chest,  (two  well  known  frauds,) 
Josiah  abolished  the  Pagan  religion  of  the  Jews,  massacred  all  the 
Pagan  priests,  though  he  himself  had  been  a  Pagan,  as  the  reader 
will  see  in  the  23d  chap.  2d  Kings,  and  thus  established  in  bloody 
the  law  that  is  there  called  the  law  of  Moses,  and  instituted  a  pass- 


172  LETTER    TO   MR.    ERSKLNE. 

over  in  commemoration  thereof.  The  22d  ver.  speaking  of  this 
passover,  says,  "Surely  there  was  not  holden  such  a  passover  from 
the  days  of  the  judges,  that  judged  Israel,  nor  in  all  the  days  of  the 
kings  of  Israel,  nor  the  kings  of  Judah  ;"  and  the  25th  verse  in 
speakjng  of  this  priest-killing  Josiah,  says,  "Like  unto  him  there 
was  no  king  before  him,  that  turned  to  the  Lord  with  all  his  heart, 
and  with  all  his  soul,  and  with  all  his  might,  according  to  all  the 
law  of  Moses  ;  neither  after  him  arose  there  any  like  him"  This 
verse,  like  the  former  one,  is  a  general  declaration  against  all  the 
preceding  kings  without  exception.  It  is  also  a  declaration  against 
all  that  reigned  after  him,  of  which  there  were  four,  the  whole 
time  of  whose  reigning  makes  but  twenty-two  years  and  six 
months,  before  the  Jews  were  entirely  broken  up  as  a  nation  and 
their  monarchy  destroyed.  It  is  therefore  evident  that  the  law, 
called  the  law  of  Moses,  of  which  the  Jews  talk  so  much,  was  pro- 
mulgated and  established  only  in  the  latter  time  of  the  Jewish 
monarchy  ;  and  it  is  very  remarkable,  that  no  sooner  had  they  es- 
tablished it  than  they  were  a  destroyed  people,  as  if  they  were 
punished  for  acting  an  imposition  and  affixing  the  name  of  the 
Lord  to  it,  and  massacreing  their  former  priests  under  the  pre- 
tence of  religion.  The  sum  of  the  history  of  the  Jews  is  this — 
they  continued  to  be  a  nation  about  a  thousand  years,  they  then 
established  a  law,  which  they  called  the  law  of  the  Lord  given  by 
Moses,  and  were  destroyed.  This  is  not  opinion,  but  historical 
evidence. 

Levi  the  Jew,  who  has  written  an  answer  to  the  •Age  of  Reason, 
gives  a  strange  account  of  the  law  called  the  law  of  Moses. 

In  speaking  of  the  story  of  the  sun  and  moon  standing  still,  that 
the  Israelites  might  cut  the  throats  of  all  their  enemies,  and  hang 
all  their  kings,  as  told  in  Joshua,  ch.  x.  he  says,  "  There  is  also 
another  proof  of  the  reality  of  this  miracle,  which  is,  the  appeal 
that  the  author  of  the  book  of  Joshua  makes  to  the  book  of  Ja- 
sher — i  Is  not  this  written  in  the  book  of  Jasher  ?'  Hence,"  conti- 
nues Levi,  "  it  is  manifest  that  the  book  commonly  called  the  book 
of  Jasher,  existed,  and  was  well  known  at  the  time  the  book  of 
Joshua  was  written  ;  and  pray,  Sir,"  continues  Levi,  "  what  book 
do  you  think  this  was  ?  why,  no  other  than  tJie  law  of  Moses  /" — 
Levi,  like  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff,  and  many  other  guess-work  com- 
mentators, either  forgets,  or  does  not  know,  what  there  is  in  one 
part  of  the  Bible,  when  he  is  giving  his  opinion  upon  another  part. 

I  did  not,  however,  expect  to  find  so  much  ignorance  in  a  Jew 
with  respect  to  the  history  of  his  nation,  though  I  might  not  be 
surprised  at  it  in  a  Bishop.  If  Levi  will  look  into  the  account 
given  in  the  first  chap.  2d  book  of  Samuel,  of  the  Amalekite  slay- 
ing Saul,  and  bringing  the  crown  and  bracelets  to  David,  he  will 
find  the  following  recital,  ver.  15,  17,  13  :  "And  David  called 
one  of  the  young-  men,  and  said,  go  near  and  fall  Upon  him,  (the 
Amalekite)  and  he  smote  him  that  he  died  :  and  David  lamented 


LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE.  173 

with  this  lamentation  over  Saul,  and  over  Jonathan  his  son  ;  also 
he  bade  them  teach  the  children  the  use  of  the  bow ; — behold,  it  is 
written  in  the  book  of  Jasher."  If  the  book  of  Jasher  were  what 
Levi  calls  it,  the  law  of  Moses,  written  by  Moses,  it  is  not  possible 
that  any  thing  that  David  said  or  did,  could  be  written  in  that  law, 
since  Moses  died  more  than  five  hundred  years  before  David  was 
born  ;  and  on  the  other  hand,  admitting  the  book  of  Jasher  to  be 
the  law  called  the  law  of  Moses  ;  that  law  must  have  been  written 
more  than  five  hundred  years  after  Moses  was  dead,  or  it  could 
not  relate  any  thing  said  or  done  by  David.  Levi  may  take  which 
of  these  cases  he  pleases,  for  both  are  against  him. 

I  am  not  going  in  the  course  of  this  letter  to  write  a  commenta- 
ry on  the  Bible.  The  two  instances  I  have  produced,  and  which 
are  taken  from  the  beginning  of  the  Bible,  show  the  necessity  of 
examining  it.  It  is  a  book  that  has  been  read  more,  and  exam- 
ined less,  than  any  book  that  ever  existed.  Had  it  come  to  us  an 
Arabic  or  Chinese  book,  and  said  to  have  been  a  sacred  book  by 
the  people  from  whom  it  came,  no  apology  would  have  been  made 
for  the  confused  and  disorderly  state  it  is  in.  The  tales  it  relates 
of  the  Creator  would  have  been  censured,  and  our  pity  excited 
for  those  who  believed  them.  We  should  have  vindicated  the 
goodness  of  God  against  such  a  book,  and  preached  up  the  disbe- 
lief of  it  cut  of  reverence  to  him.  Why  then  do  we  not  act  as 
honourably  by  the  Creator  in  the  one  case  as  we  would  do  in  the 
other.  As  a  Chinese  book  we  would  have  examined  it ; — ought 
we  not  then  to  examine  it  as  a  Jewish  book  ?  The  Chinese  are  a 
people  who  have  all  the  appearance  of  far  greater  antiquity  than 
the  Jews,  and  in  point  of  permanency  there  is  no  comparison. — 
They  are  also  a  people  of  mild  manners  and  of  good  morals,  ex- 
cept where  they  have  been  corrupted  by  European  commerce. — 
Yet  we  take  the  word  of  a  restless  bloody-minded  people,  as  the 
Jews  of  Palestine  were,  when  we  would  reject  the  same  authority 
from  a  better  people.  We  ought  to  see  it  is  habit  and  prejudice 
that  have  prevented  people  from  examining  the  Bible.  Those  of 
the  church  of  England  call  it  holy,  because  the  Jews  called  it  so, 
and  because  custom  and  certain  acts  of  parliament  call  it  so,  and 
they  read  it  from  custom.  Dissenters  read  it  for  the  purpose  of 
doctrinal  controversy,  and  are  very  fertile  in  discoveries  and  in- 
ventions. But  none  of  them  read  it  for  the  pure  purpose  of  infor- 
mation, and  of  rendering  justice  to  the  Creator,  by  examining  if 
the  evidence  it  contains  warrants  the  belief  of  its  being  what  it  is 
called.  Instead  of  doing  this,  they  take  it  blindfolded,  and  will 
have  it  to  be  the  word  of  God  whether  it  be  so  or  not.  For  my 
own  part,  my  belief  in  the  perfection  of  the  Deity  will  not  permit 
me  to  believe,  that  a  book  so  manifestly  obscure,  disorderly,  and 
contradictory,  can  be  his  work.  I  can  write  a  better  book  myself. 
This  disbelief  in  me  proceeds  from  my  belief  in  the  Creator.  I 
cannot  pin  rny  faith  upon  the  saw  so  of  Hilkiah  the  priest,  who  said 
15* 


174  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE. 

he  found  it,  or  any  part  of  it,  nor  upon  Shaphan  the  scribe,  nor 
upon  any  priests,  nor  any  scribe  or  man  of  the  law  of  the  present 
day. 

As  to  acts  of  parliament,  there  are  some  thai  say  there  are 
witches  and  wizards  ;  and  the  persons  who  made  those  acts  (it 
was  in  the  time  of  James  the  First,)  made  also  some  acts  which 
call  the  Bible  the  Holy  Scriptures,  or  Word  of  God.  But  acts  of 
parliament  decide  nothing  with  respect  to  God  ;  and  as  these  acts 
of  parliament  makers  were  wrong  with  respect  to  witches  and  wiz- 
ards, they  may  also  be  wrong  with  respect  to  the  book  in  question.* 
It  is  therefore  necessary  that  the  book  be  examined  ;  it  is  our 

*  It  is  afflicting  to  humanity  to  reflect  that,  after  the  blood  shed  to  establish  the 
divinity  of  the  Jewish  scriptures,  it  should  have  become  necessary  to  grant  a  new  rfw- 
pensdtion,  which,  through  unbelief  and  conflicting  opinions  respecting  its  true  con- 
struction, has  cost  as  great  or  greater  sacrifices  than  the  former.  Catholics,  when 
they  had  the  ascendency,  burnt  Protestants,  who,  in  turn,  led  Catholics  to  the  stake, 
ana  both  united  in  exterminating  Dissenters.  The  Dissenters,  when  they  had  the 
power,  pursued  the  same  course.  The  diabolical  act  of  Calvin,  in  the  burning  of 
Dr.  Servetus,  is  an  awful  witness  of  this  fact.  Servetus  suffered  two  hours  in  a 
slow  fire  before  life  was  extinct.  The  Dissenters,  who  escaped  from  England,  had 
scarcely  seated  themselves  in  the  wilds  of  America,  before  they  began  to  exterminate 
from  the  territory  they  seized  upon,  all  those  who  did  not  profess  what  they  called 
the  orthodox  faith.  Priests,  Quakers,  and  Adamites,  were  prohibited  from  enter* 
ing  the  territory,  on  pain  of  death.  By  priests,  they  meant  clergymen  of  the  Roman 
Catholic,  if  not  also  of  the  Protestant  or  Episcopal  "persuasion.  Their  own  priests 
they  denominated  ministers.  These  puritans  also,  particularly  in  the  province  of 
Massachusetts-Bay,  put  many  persons  to  death  on  the  charge  of  witchcraft.  There 
is  no  account  however  of  their  having  burned  any  alive,  as  was  done  in  Scotland, 
about  the  same  period  in  which  the  executions  took  place  in  Massachusetts-Bay.  In 
England,  Sir  Matthew  Hale,  a  judge,  eminent  for  extraordinary  piety,  condemned 
two  women  to  death  on  the  same  charge. 

I  doubt,  however,  if  there  be  any  acts  of  the  parliament  now  in  force  for  inflicting 
pains  and  penalties  for  denying  the  scriptures  to  be  the  word  of  God;  as  our  up- 
right judges  seem  to  rely  at  this  time  wholly  upon,  what  they  call,  the  common  law 
to  justify  the  horrid  persecutions  which  are  now  carried  on'in  England,  to  the  dis- 
grace of  a  country  that  boasts  so  much  of  its  tolerant  spirit. 

As  the  common  law  is  derived  from  the  customs  of  our  ancestors,  when  in  a  rude 
and  barbarous  condition,  it  is  not  surprising  that  many  of  its  injunctions  should  be  op- 
posed tp  the  ideas,  which  a  society  in  a  civilized  and  refined  state  should  deem  com- 
patible with  justice  and  right.  Accordingly  we  find  that  government  has  from  time 
to  time  annulled  some  of  its  most  prominent  absurdities ;  such  as  the  trials  by  ordeal, 
the  wager  of  battle  in  case  of  appeal  for  murder,  under  a  belief  that  a  supernatural 
power  would  interfere  to  save  the  innocent  and  destroy  the  guilty  in  such  a  combat, 
&c.  Yet  much  remains  nearly  as  ridiculous,  that  requires  a  further  and  more  liberal 
use  of  the  pruning  knife. 

"  In  the  days  of  the  Stewarts,  (A.  D.  1670,  22d  year  of  Charles  II.  See  the  Re- 
publican, vol.  5.  p.  22.)  William  Penn  was  indicted  at  Common  Law  for  a  riot  and 
breach  of  the  peace,  on  having  delivered  his  sentiments  to  a  congregation  of  people,  in 
Grace-church-street :  he  told  the  judge  and  the  jury  that  Common  Law  was  an  abuse, 
and  no  law  at  all ;  and  in  spite  of  the  threats,  the  fines  and  imprisonments  inflicted 
on  his  jury,  they  acquitted  him  on  this  plea.  William  Penn  found  an  honest  jury," 

The  introduction  however  of  Christianity,  as  composing  a  part  of  this  Common 
Law  (bad  as  much  of  it  is,)  is  proved  to  be  a  fraud  or  misconception  of  the  old  Norman 
French ;  as  I  shall  show  by  an  extract  of  a  letter  from  the  celebrated  American 
statesman,  Thomas  Jefferson,  to  our  worthy  Major  Cartwright,  bearing  date  5th 
June,  1824. 

[For  a  more  full  developement  of  this  subject,  see  Sampson's  Anniversary  Discourse, 
before  the  Historical  Society  of  New- York.  EDITOR.] 


LETTER   TO   MR.    ERSKINE.  175 

duty  to  examine  it ;  and  to  suppress  the  right  of  examination  is 
sinful  in  any  government,  or  in  any  judge  or  jury.  The  Bible 
makes  God  to  say  to  Moses,  Deut.  chap.  vii.  ver.  2,  "  And  when 

Extract  from  Jefferson's  letter. 

"I  am  glad  to  find  in  your  book  (The  English  Constitution,  produced  and  illustra- 
ted) a  formal  contradiction,  at  length,  of  the  judiciary  usurpation  of  legislative  power  ; 
for  such  the  judges  have  usurped  in  their  repeated  decisions,  that  Christianity  is  a 
part  of  the  commo.i  law.  The  proof  of  the  contrary,  which  you  have  adduced,  is 
incontrovertible  :  to  wit,  that  the  common  law  existed  while  the  Anglo-Saxons  were 
yet  Pagans  ;  at  a  time  when  they  had  never  yet  heard  the  name  of  Christ  pronounced, 
or  knew  that  such  a  character  had  ever  existed.  But  it  may  amuse  you  to  show 
when,  and  by  what  means,  they  stole  this  law  in  upon  us.  In  a  case  ofQuare  Impedit, 
in  the  year  book,  34  Henry  VI.  fo.  38,  [1458,]  a  question  was  made  how  far  the  Ec- 
clesiastical law  was  to  be  respected  in  a  common  law  court  ?  and  Prisot,  C.  J.,gave 
his  opinion  in  these  words  : — «  A  tiel  les  que  ils  de  saint  eglifce  ont  en  ancien  scripture, 
covient  a  nous  a  donner  credence  :  car  ceo  Commen  Ley  sur  quels  touts  manners  leis 
sont  fonddes.  Et  auxy,  Srr,  nous  sumus  obliges  de  conustre  lour  ley  de  saint  eglise  : 
et  semblabement  ils  sont  obliges  de  conustre  nostre  ley — Et,  Sir,  si  poit  appcrer  or  a 
nous  que  1'evesque  adfait  come  un  ordinary  fera  en  tiel  cas,  adorez  nous  devoiis  ceo 
adjuger  bon,  ou  auterment  nemy  V  &c.  [To  such  laws  as  they  have  of  the  an- 
cient scriptures,  it  behoves  us  to  give  credence  :  for  it  is  that  common  law  upon  which 
all  kinds  of  Jaw  are  founded ;  and  therefore  sir  are  we  bound  to  know  their  law  of 
holy  church,  and  in  like  manner  are  they  obliged  to  know  our  laws.  And,  sir,  if  it 
should  appear  now  to  us,  that  the  Bishop  had  done  what  an  ordinary  ought  to  do  in 
like  case,  then  we  should  adjudge  it  good,  and  not  otherwise.*] 

"  See  G.  C.  Fitz.  abr.  qu.  imp.  89.  Bro.  abr.  qu.  imp.  12.  Finch  in  his  1st  Book. 
c.  3,  is  the  r  '«t  afterwards  who  quotes  the  case,  and  mistates  it  thus,  *  to  such  laws 
of  the  church  as  have  warrant  in  Holy  Scripture,  our  law  giveth  credence,'  and 
cites  Prisot ;  mistranslating  '  ancient  Scripture'  into  '  holy  Scripture ;'  whereas 
Prisot  palpably  says,  '  to  such  laws  as  those  of  holy  church  have  in  ancient  writ- 
ing it  is  proper  for  us  to  ,'give  credence;'  to  wit,  their  ancient  written  laws.  This 
was  in  1513,  a  century  and  a  half  after  the  dictum  of  Prisot.  Wingate,  in  1658. 
erects  this  false  translation  into  a  maxim  of  the  common  law,  copying  the  words  ot 
Finch,  but  citing  Prisot.  Wingate,  max.  3,  and  Sheppard,  tit.  '  Religion,  in  1675 
copies  the  same  mistranslation,  quoting  the  Y.  13,  Finch  and  Wingate.  Hale  ex 
presses  it  in  these  words  :  '  Christianity  is  parcel  of  the  law  of  England' — 1  Ventris 
293.  3.  Keb.  607,  but  quotes  no  authority.  By  these  echoings  and  re-echoings  from 
one  to  another,  it  had  become  so  established  in  1723,  that  in  the  case  of  the  King  v. 
Woolston,  2.  Stra.  834,  the  court  would  not  suffer  it  to  be  debated,  whether  to  write 
against  Christianity  was  punishable  in  the  temporal  court  at  common  law.  Wood, 
therefore,  409,  ventures  still  to  vary  the  phrase,  and  says,  '  that  all  blasphemy  and 
profaneness  are  offences  by  the  common  law,'  and  cites  2  Stra. — then  Blackstone, 
in  1773,  iv.  59,  repeats  the  words  of  Hale,  that  '  Christianity  is  part  of  the  law  of 
England,'  citing  Ventris  and  Strange  ;  and  finally,  Lord  Mansfield,  with  a  little  quali- 
fication, in  Evan's  case  in  1767,  says,  that '  the  essential  principles  of  revealed  re- 
ligion are  parts  of  the  common  law  ;'  thus  ingulfing  Bible,  Testament,  and  all  into 
the  common  law,  without  citing  any  authority  ;  and  thus  we  find  this  chain  of  au- 
thorities hanging,  link  by  link,  one  upon  another,  and  all  ultimately  on  one  and  the 
same  hook ;  and  that,  a  mistranslation  of  the  words  '  ancient  scripture,'  used  byf 
Prisot.  Finch  quotes  Prisot;  Wingate  does  the  same;  Sheppard  quotes  Prisot, 
Finch,  and  Wingate  ;  Hale  cites  nobody;  the  court  in  Woolston's  case,  cites  Hale; 
Wood  cites  Woolston 's  case;  Blacivstone  quotes  Woolston's  case  and  Hale;  and 
Lord  Mansfield,  like  Hale,  ventures  it  on  his  own  authority.  Here  I  might  defy  the 
best  read  lawyer  to  produce  another  scrap  of  authority  for  this  judiciary  forgery  ;• 
and  I  might  go  on  further  to  show  how  some  of  the  Anglo-Saxon  priests  interpolated 
into  the  text  of  Alfred's  laws  the  20th,  21st,  22d,  and  23d  chapters  of  Exodus,  and 
the  15th  of  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles,  from  the  23d  to  the  29th  verses;  but  this  would 
lead  my  pen,  and  your  patience,  too  far.  What  a  conspiracy  this,  between  church 
and  state  ! ! !" 

[*  The  canons  of  the  church  anciently  were  incorporated  with  the  Laws  of  the 
land,  and  of  the  same  authority.  See  Dr.  Henry's  hist.  G.  Britain.  Editor.] 


176  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE. 

the  Lord  thy  God  shall  deliver  them  before  thee,  thou  shalt  smite 
them,  and  utterly  destroy  them,  thou  shalt  make  no  covenant  with 
them,  nor  show  mercy  unto  them"  Not  all  the  priests,  nor  scribes, 
nor  tribunals  in  the  world,  nor  all  the  authority  of  man,  shall  make 
me  believe  that  God  ever  gave  such  a  Robesperian  precept  as  that 
of  showing  no  mercy  ;  and  consequently  it  is  impossible  that  I,  of 
any  person  who  believes  as  reverentially  of  the  Creator  as  I  do, 
can  believe  such  a  book  to  be  the  word  of  God. 

There  have  been,  and  still  are  those,  who,  whilst  they  profess 
to  believe  the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of  God,  affect  to  turn  it  into 
ridicule.  Taking  their  profession  and  conduct  together,  they  act 
blasphemously  :  because  they  act  as  if  God  himself  was  not  to  be 
believed.  The  case  is  exceedingly  different  with  respect  to  the 
Age  of  Reason.  That  book  is  written  to  show  from  the  Bible  it- 
self, that  there  is  abundant  matter  to  suspect  it  is  not  the  word  of 
God,  and  that  we  have  been  imposed  upon,  first  by  Jews,  and  af- 
terwards by  priests  and  commentators. 

Not  one  of  those  who  have  attempted  to  write  answers  to  the 
•flge  of  Reason,  have  taken  the  ground  upon  which  only  an  answer 
could  be  written.  The  case  in  question  is  not  upon  any  point  of 
doctrine,  but  altogether  upon  a  matter  of  fact.  Is  the  book  called 
the  Bible  the  word  of  God,  or  is  it  not?  If  it  can  be  proved  to  be 
so,  it  ought  to  be  believed  as  such  ;  if  not,  it  ought  not  to  be  be- 
lieved as  such.  This  is  the  true  state  of  the  case.  The  Age  of 
Reason  produces  evidence  to  show,  and  I  have  in  this  letter  pro- 
duced additional  evidence,  that  it  is  not  the  word  of  God.  Those 
who  take  the  contrary  side,  should  prove  that  it  is.  But  this  they 
have  not  done,  nor  attempted  to  do,  and  consequently  they  have 
done  nothing  to  the  purpose. 

The  prosecutors  of  Williams  have  shrunk  from  the  point,  as  the 
answers  have  done.  They  have  availed  themselves  of  prejudice 
instead  of  proof.  If  a  writing  was  produced  in  a  court  of  judica- 
ture, said  to  be  the  writing  of  a  certain  person,  and  upon  the  reali- 
ty or  non-reality  of  which,  some  matter  at  issue  depended,  the 
point  to  be  proved  would  be,  that  such  writing  was  the  writing  of 
such  person.  Or  if  the  issue  depended  upon  certain  words,  which 
some  certain  person  was  said  to  have  spoken,  the  point  to  be  prov- 
ed would  be,  that  such  words  were  spoken  by  such  person  ;  and 
Mr.  Erskine  would  contend  the  case  upon  this  ground.  A  certain 
book  is  said  to  be  the  word  of  God.  What  is  the  proof  that  it  is  so  ? 
for  upon  this  the  whole  depends  ;  and  if  it  cannot  be  proved  to  be 
so,  the  prosecution  fails  for  want  of  evidence. 

The  prosecution  against  Williams  charges  him  with  publishing 
a  book,  entitled  Tlie  Jlgc  of  Reason,  which  it  says,  is  an  impious, 
blasphemous  pamphlet,  tending  to  ridicule  and  bring  into  contempt 
the  Holy  Scriptures.  Nothing  is  more  easy  than  to  find  abusive 
words,  and  English  prosecutions  ar«  famous  for  this  species  of  vul- 
garity. The  charge,  however,  is  sophistical ;  for  the  charge,  as 


LETTER   TO    3IR.    ERSKINE.  177 

growing  out  of  the  pamphlet,  should  have  stated,  not  as  it  now 
states,  to  ridicule  and  bring  into  contempt  the  Holy  Scriptures,  but 
to  show,  that  the  book  called  the  Holy  Scriptures  are  not  the  Ho- 
ly Scriptures.  It  is  one  thing  if  I  ridicule  a  work  as  being  writ- 
ten by  a  certain  person  ;  but  it  is  quite  a  different  thing  if  I  write 
to  prove  that  such  work  was  not  written  by  such  person.  In  the 
first  case,  I  attack  the  person  through  the  work  ;  in  the  other  case, 
I  defend  the  honour  of  the  person  against  the  work.  This  is  what 
the  Jlge  of  Reason  does,  and  consequently  the  charge  in  the  in- 
dictment is  sophistically  stated.  Every  one  will  admit,  that  if  the 
Bible  be  not  the  word  of  God,  we  err  in  believing  it  to  be  his  word, 
and  ought  not  to  believe  it.  Certainly,  then,  the  ground  the  prose- 
cution should  take,  would  be  to  prove  that  the  Bible  is  in  fact  what 
it  is  called.  But  this  the  prosecution  has  not  done,  and  cannot  do. 

In  all  cases  the  prior  fact  must  be  proved,  before  the  subse- 
quent facts  can  be  admitted  in  evidence.  In  a  prosecution  for 
adultery,  the  fact  of  marriage,  which  is  the  prior  fact,  must  be 
proved  before  the  facts  to  prove  adultery  can  be  received.  If  the 
fact  of  marriage  cannot  be  proved,  adultery  cannot  be  proved  ; 
and  if  the  prosecution  cannot  prove  the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of 
God,  the  charge  of  blasphemy  is  visionary  and  groundless. 

In  Turkey  they  might  prove,  if  the  case  happened,  that  a  cer- 
tain book  was  bought  of  a  certain  bookseller,  and  that  the  said 
book  was  written  against  the  Koran.  In  Spain  and  Portugal  they 
might  prove,  that  a  certain  book  was  bought  of  a  certain  booksel- 
ler, and  that  the  said  book  was  written  against  the  infallibility  of 
the  Pope.  Under  the  ancient  mythology  they  might  have  proved, 
that  a  certain  writing  was  bought  of  a  certain  person,  and  that 
the  said  writing  was  written  against  the  belief  of  a  plurality  of 
Gods,  and  in  the  support  of  the  belief  of  one  God.  Socrates  was 
condemned  for  a  work  of  this  kind. 

All  these  are  but  subsequent  facts,  and  amount  to  nothing,  un- 
less the  prior  facts  be  proved.  The  prior  fact,  with  respect  to 
the  first  case,  is,  Is  the  Koran  the  word  of  God?  With  respect  to 
the  second,  Is  the  infallibility  of  the  Pope  a  truth?  With  respect 
to  the  third,  Is  the  belief  of  a  plurality  of  Gods  a  true  belief?  and 
in  like  manner  with  respect  to  the  present  prosecution,  Is  the  book 
called  the  Bible  the  word  of  God  ?  If  the  present  prosecution 
prove  no  more  than  could  be  proved  in  any  or  all  of  these  cases,  x 
it  proves  only  as  they  do,  or  as  an  inquisition  would  prove  ;  and 
in  this  view  of  the  case,  the  prosecutors  ought  at  least  to  leave  off 
reviling  that  infernal  institution,  the  inquisition.  The  prosecu- 
tion, however,  though  it  may  injure  the  individual,  may  promote 
the  cause  of  truth  ;  because  the  manner  in  which  it  has  been  con- 
ducted, appears  a  confession  to  the  world,  that  there  is  no  evi- 
dence to  prove  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God.  On  what  au- 
thority then  do  we  believe  the  many  strange  stories  that  the  Biblo 
tells  of  God  ? 


178  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE. 

This  prosecution  has  been  carried  on  through  the  medium  of 
what  is  called  a  special  jury,  and  the  whole  of  a  special  jury  is 
nominated  by  the  master  of  the  crown  office.  Mr.  Erskine  vaunts 
himself  upon  the  bill  he  brought  into  parliament,  with  respect  to 
trials,  for  what  the  government  party  calls  libels.  But  if  in  crown 
prosecutions,  the  master  of  the  crown  office  is  to  continue  to  ap«. 
point  the  whole  special  jury,  which  he  does  by  nominating  the 
forty  eight  persons  from  which  the  solicitor  of  each  party  is  to 
strike  out  twelve,  Mr.  Erskine's  bill  is  only  vapour  and  smoke 
The  root  of  the  grievance  lies  in  the  manner  of  forming  the  jury, 
and  to  this  Mr.  'Erskine's  bill  applies  no  remedy. 

When  the  trial  of  Williams  came  on,  only  eleven  of  the  special 
jurymen  appeared,  and  the  trial  was  adjourned.  In  cases  where 
the  whole  number  do  not  appear,  it  is  customary  to  make  up  the 
deficiency  by  taking  jurymen  from  persons  present  in  the  court. 
This,  in  the  law  term,  is  called  a  Tales.  Why  was  not  this  done 
in  this  case  ?  Reason  will  suggest,  that  they  did  not  choose  to 
depend  on  a  man  accidentally  taken.  When  the  trial  re-com- 
menced, the  whole  .of  the  special  jury  appeared,  and  Williams 
was  convicted  :  it  is  folly  to  contend  a  cause  where  the  whole 
jury  is  nominated  by  one  of  the  parties.  I  will  relate  a  recent 
case  that  explains  a  great  deal  with  respect  to  special  juries  in 
crown  prosecutions. 

On  the  trial  of  Lambert  and  others,  printers  and  proprietors  of 
the  Morning  Chronicle,  for  a  libel,  a  special  jury  was  struck,  on 
the  prayer  of  the  Attorney-General,  who  used  to  be  called  Diabo- 
lus  Regis,  or  King's  Devil. 

Only  seven  or  eight  of  the  special  jury  appeared,  and  the  At- 
torney-General not  praying  a  Tales,  the  trial  stood  over  to  a  fu- 
ture day  ;  when  it  was  to  be  brought  on  a  second  time,  the  At- 
torney-General prayed  for  a  new  special  jury,  but  as  this  was 
not  admissible,  the  original  special  jury  was  summoned.  Only 
eight  of  them  appeared,  on  which  the  Attorney-General  said, 
"  As  I  cannot,  on  a  second  trial,  have  a  special  jury,  I  will  pray 
a  Tales."  Four  persons  were  then  taken  from  the  persons  pres- 
ent in  court,  and  added  to  the  eight  special  jurymen.  The  jury 
went  out  at  two  o'clock  to  consult  on  their  verdict,  and  the  Judge 
(Kenyon)  understanding  they  were  divided,  and  likely  to  be 
some  time  in  making  up  their  minds,  retired  from  the  bench,  and 
went  home.  At  seven  the  jury  went,  attended  by  an  officer  of 
the  court,  to  the  Judge's  house,  and  delivered  a  verdict,  "  Guilty 
of  publishing,  but  with  no  malicious  intention."  The  Judge  said, 
"  I  cannot  record  this  verdict  ;  it  is  no  verdict  at  all."  The  jury 
withdrew,  and  after  sitting  in  consultation  till  five  in  the  morning, 
brought  in  a  verdict,  Not  Guilty.  W'ould  this  have  been  the 
case,  had  they  been  all  special  jurymen  nominated  by  the  Master 
of  the  Crown-office  ?  This  is  one  of  the  cases  that  ought  to 


LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE.  179 

Open  the  eyes  of  people  with  respect  to  the  manner  of  forming 
special  juries. 

On  the  trial  of  WillLms,  the  Judge  prevented  the  counsel  for 
the  defendant  proceeding  in  the  defence.  The  prosecution  had 
selected  a  number  of  passages  from  the  Age  of  Reason,  and  in- 
serted them  in  the  indictment.  The  defending  counsel  was  select- 
ing other  passages  to  show,  that  the  passages  in  the  indictment 
were  conclusions  drawn  from  premises,  and  unfairly  separated 
therefrom  in  the  indictment.  The  Judge  said,  he  did  not  knoio 
how  to  act  ;  meaning  thereby  whether  to  let  the  counsel  proceed 
in  the  defence  or  not,  and  asked  the  jury  if  they  wished  to  hear 
the  passages  read  which  the  defending  counsel  had  selected. 
The  jury  said  xo,  and  the  defending  counsel  was  in  consequence 
silent.  Mr.  Erskine  then,  Falstaff  like,  having  all  the  field  to 
himself,  and  no  enemy  at  hand,  laid  about  him  most  heroically, 
and  the  jury  found  the  defendant  guilty,  I  know  not  if  Mr.  Ers-~ 
kine  ran  out  of  court  and  hallooed,  huzza  for  the  Bible  and 
the  trial  by  jury. 

Robespierre  caused  a  decree  to  be  passed  during  the  trial  of 
Brissot  and  others,  that  after  a  trial  had  lasted  three  days,  (the 
whole  of  which  time,  in  the  case  of  Brissot,  was  taken  up  by  the 
prosecuting  party)  the  judge  should  ask  the  jury  (who  were  then 
a  packed  jury  )  if  they  were  satisfied  ?  If  the  Jury  said  YES,  the  trial 
ended,  and  the  jury  proceeded  to  give  their  verdict,  without  hear- 
ing the  defence  of  the  accused  party.  It  needs  no  depth  of  wis- 
dom to  make  an  application  of  this  case. 

I  will  now  state  a  case  to  show  that  the  trial  of  Williams  is  not 
a  trial,  according  to  Kenyon's  own  explanation  of  law. 

On  a  late  trial  in  London  (Selthens  versus  Hoossman)  on  a  poli- 
cy of  insurance,  one  of  the  jurymen,  Mr.  Dunnage,  after  hearing 
one  side  of  the  case,  and  without  hearing  the  other  side,  got  up 
and  said,  it  was  as  legal  a  policy  of  insurance  as  ever  was  written. 
The  Judge,  who  was  the  same  as  presided  on  the  trial  of  Williams, 
replied,  that  it  was  a  great  misfortune  ivhen  any  gentleman  of  the 
jury  makes  up  his  mind  on  a  cause  before  it  was  finished.  Mr.  Ers- 
kine, who  in  that  case  was  counsel  for  the  defendant  (in  this  he 
was  against  the  defendant)  cried  out,  it  is  worse  than  a  misfortune, 
it  is  a  fault.  The  Judge,  in  his  address  to  the  jury  in  summing- 
up  the  evidence,  expatiated  upon,  and  explained  the  parts  which 
the  law  assigned  to  the  counsel  on  each  side,  to  the  witnesses, 
and  to  the  Judge,  and  said,  "  When  all  this  was  done,  and  not  un- 
til then,  it  was  the  business  of  the  jury  to  declare  I'jhat  the  justice 
of  the  case  was  ;  and  that  it  was  extremely  rash  and  imprudent  in 
any  man  to  draw  a  conclusion  before  all  the  premises  were  laid  be- 
fore them,  upon  which  that  conclusion  was  to  be  grounded."  Ac- 
cording then  to  Kenyon's  own  doctrine,  the  trial  of  Williams  is 
an  irregular  trial,  the  verdict  an  irregular  verdict,  and  as  such  is 
not  recordable. 


180  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE. 

As  to  special  juries,  they  were  but  modern  ;  and  were  institut- 
ed for  the  purpose  of  determining  cases  at  law  between  mer 
chants  ;  because,  as  the  method  of  keeping  merchants'  account* 
differs  from  that  of  common  tradesmen,  and  their  business,  by 
lying  much  in  foreign  bills  of  exchange,  insurance,  &.c.,  is  of  a 
different  description  to  that  of  common  tradesmen,  it  might  hap-» 
pen  that  a  common  jury  might  not  be  competent  to  form  a  judg» 
ment.  The  law  that  instituted  special  juries,  makes  it  necessary 
that  the  jurors  be  merchants,  or  of  the  degree  of  squires.  A  spe- 
cial jury  in  London  is  generally  composed  of  merchants  ;  and 
in  the  country  of  men  called  country  squires,  that  is,  fox-hunters, 
or  men  qualified  to  hunt  foxes.  The  one  may  decide  very  well 
upon  a  case  of  pounds,  shillings,  and  pence,  or  of  the  counting- 
house  ;  and  the  other  of  the  jockey-club  or  the  chase.  But  who 
would  not  laugh,  that  because  such  men  can  decide  such  cases, 
thsy  can  also  be  jurors  upon  theology.  Talk  with  some  London 
merchants  about  scripture,  and  they  will  understand  you  mean 
scrip,  and  tell  you  how  much  it  is  worth  at  the  Stock  Exchange. 
Ask  them  about  theology,  and  they  will  say,  they  know  of  no 
such  gentleman  upon  Change.  Tell  some  country  squires  of 
the  sun  and  moon  standing  still,  the  one  on  the  top  of  a  hill  and 
the  other  in  a  valley,  and  they  will  swear  it  is  a  lie  of  one's  own 
making.  Tell  them  that  God  Almighty  ordered  a  man  to  make 
a  cake  and  bake  it  with  a  t — d  and  eat  it,  and  they  will  say  it  is 
one  of  Dean  Swift's  blackguard  stories.  Tell  them  it  is  in  the 
Bible,  and  they  will  lay  a  bowl  of  punch  it  is  not,  and  leave  it  to 
the  parson  of  the  parish  to  decide.  Ask  them  also  about  theolo- 
gy, and  they  will  say,  they  know  of  no  such  one  on  the  turf. 
An  appeal  to  such  juries  serves  to  bring  the  Bible  into  more 
ridicule  than  any  thing  the  author  of  the  Jlge  of  Reason  has  writ- 
ten ;  and  the  manner  in  which  the  trial  has  been  conducted 
shows,  that  the  prosecutor  dares  not  come  to  the  point,  nor  meet 
the  defence  of  the  defendant.  But  all  other  cases  apart,  on 
what  ground  of  right,  otherwise  than  on  the  right  assumed  by  an 
inquisition,  do  such  prosecutions  stand  ?  Religion  is  a  private 
affair  between  every  man  and  his  Maker,  and  no  tribunal  of  third 
party  has  a  right  to  interfere  between  them.  It  is  not  properly 
a  thing  of  this  world  ;  it  is  only  practised  in  this  world  ;  but  its 
object  is  in  a  future  world  ;  and  it  is  no  otherwise  an  object  of 
just  laws,  than  for  the  purpose  of  protecting  the  equal  rights  of 
all,  however  various  their  beliefs  may  be.  If  one  man  choose 
to  believe  the  book  called  the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of  God,  and 
another,  from  the  convinced  idea  of  the  purity  and  perfection  of 
God,  compared  with  the  contradictions  the  book  contains — from 
the  lasciviousness  of  some  of  its  stories,  like  that  of  Lot  getting 
drunk  and  debauching  his  two  daughters,  which  is  not  spoken 
of  as  a  crime,  and  for  which  the  most  absurd  apologies  are  made 
— from  the  immorality  of  some  of  its  precepts,  like  that  of  showing 


LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE.  181 

no  mercy — and  from  the  total  want  of  evidence  on  the  case,  thinks 
he  ought  not  to  believe  it  to  be  the  word  of  God,  each  of  them 
has  an  equal  right  ;  and  if  the  one  has  a  right  to  give  his  reasons 
for  believing  it  to  be  so,  the  other  has  an  equal  right  to  give  his 
reasons  for  believing  the  contrary.  Any  thing  that  goes  beyond 
this  rule  is  an  inquisition.  Mr.  Erskine  talks  of  his  moral  ed- 
uation  ;  Mr.  Erskine  is  very  little  acquainted  with  theological 
subjects,  if  he  does  not  know  there  is  such  a  thing  as  a  sincere 
and  religious  belief  that  the  Bible  is  not  the  word  of  God.  This 
is  my  belief ;  it  is  the  belief  of  thousands  far  more  learned  than 
Mr.  Erskine  ;  and  it  is  a  belief  that  is  every  day  increasing.  It 
is  not  infidelity,  as  Mr.  Erskine  profanely  and  abusively  calls 
it  :  it  is  the  direct  reverse  of  infidelity.  It  is  a  pure  religious 
belief,  founded  on  the  idea  of  the  perfection  of  the  Creator.  If 
the  Bible  be  the  word  of  God,  it  needs  not  the  wretched  aid  of 
prosecutions  to  support  it  ;  and  you  might  with  as  much  proprie- 
ty make  a  law  to  protect  the  sunshine,  as  to  protect  the  Bible,  if 
the  Bible,  like  the  sun,  be  the  work  of  God.  We  see  that  God 
takes  good  care  of  the  Creation  he  has  made.  He  suffers  no 
part  of  it  to  be  extinguished  :  and  he  will  take  the  same  care  of 
his  word,  if  he  ever  gave  one.  But  men  ought  to  be  reverentially 
careful  and  suspicious  how  they  ascribe  books  to  him  as  his  word, 
which  from  this  confused  condition  would  dishonour  a  common 
scribbler,  and  against  which  there  is  abundant  evidence,  and 
every  cause  to  suspect  imposition.  Leave  then  the  Bible  to  it- 
self. God  will  take  care  of  it  if  he  has  any  thing  to  do  with  it, 
as  he  takes  care  of  the  sun  and  the  moon,  which  need  not  your 
laws  for  their  better  protection.  As  the  two  instances  I  have 
produced  in  the  beginning  of  this  letter,  from  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis, the  one  respecting  the  account  called  the  Mosaic  account 
of  the  Creation,  the  other  of  the  Flood,  sufficiently  show  the  ne- 
cessity of  examining  the  Bible,  in  order  to  ascertain  what  degree 
of  evidence  there  is  for  receiving  or  rejecting  it  as  a  sacred 
book  ;  I  shall  not  add  more  upon  that  subject  ;  but  in  order  to 
show  Mr.  Erskine  that  there  are  religious  establishments  for  pub- 
lic \\*orship  which  make  no  profession  of  faith  of  the  books  call- 
ed holy  scriptures,  nor  admit  of  priests,  I  will  conclude  with  an 
account  of  a  society  lately  began  in  Paris,  and  which  is  very 
rapidly  extending  itself. 

The  society  takes  the  name  of  Theophilantropes,  which  would 
be  rendered  in  English  by  the  word  Theophilanthropists,  a  word 
compounded  of  three  Greek  words,  signifying  God,  Love,  and 
Man.  The  explanation  given  to  this  word  is,  Lovers  of  God  and 
Man,  or  Jidorers  of  God  and  Friends  of  Man,  adorateurs  de  Dieu 
et  amis  des  hommes.  The  society  proposes  to  publish  each  year 
a  volume,  entitled,  Anne  Religieuse  des  Theophilantropes,  Re- 
ligious year  of  the  Theophilanthropists  :  the  first  volume  is  just 
published,  entitled 

16 


182  LETTER   TO    MR.    ERSKINE. 

RELIGIOUS  YEAR  OF  THE  THEOPHILANTHROPISTS, 

OR, 

JWORERS  OF  GOD,  JUYD  FRIENDS  OF  MAN. 

Being'a  collection  of  the  discourses,  lectures,  hymns,  and  can- 
ticles, for  all  the  religious  and  moral  festivals'  of  the  Theophilan- 
thropists  during  the  course  of  the  year,  whether  in  their  public 
temples  or  in  their  private  families,  published  by  the  author  of  the 
Manuel  of  the  Theophilanthropists. 

The  volume  of  this  year,  which  is  the  first,  contains  214  pages 
duodecimo. 

The  following  is  the  table  of  contents  : — 

1.  Precise  history  of  the  Theophilanthropists. 

2.  Exercises  common  to  all  the  festivals. 

3.  Hymn,  No.  1 ,  God  of  whom  the  universe  speaks. 

4.  Discourse  upon  the  existence  of  God. 

5.  Ode  II.     The  heavens  instruct  the  earth. 

6.  Precepts  of  wisdom,  extracted  from  the  book  of  the  Ado- 

rateurs. 

7.  Canticle,  No.  III.  God  Creator,  soul  of  nature. 

8.  Extracts-from  divers  moralists  upon  the  nature  of  God,  and 

upon  the  physical  proofs  of  his  existence. 

9.  Canticle,  No.  IV.   Let  us  bless  at  our  waking  the  God  who 

gives  us  light. 

10.  Moral  thoughts  extracted  from  the  Bible. 

11.  Hymn,  No.  V.    Father  of  the  universe. 

12.  Contemplation  of  nature  on  the  first  days  of  the  spring. 

13.  Ode,  No.  VI.  Lord  in  thy  glory  adorable. 

14.  Extracts  from  the  moral  thoughts  of  Confucius. 

15.  Canticle  in  praise  of  actions,  and  thanks  for  the  works  of  the 

creation. 

16.  Continuation  from  the  moral  thoughts  of  Confucius. 

17.  Hymn,  No.  VII.  All  the  universe  is  full  of  thy  magnificence. 

18.  Extracts  from  an  ancient  sage  of  India  upon  the  duties  of 

families. 

19.  Upon  the  spring.  • 

20.  Moral  thoughts  of  divers  Chinese  authors. 

21.  Canticle,  No.  VIII.    Every  thing  celebrate  the  glory  of  the 

eternal. 

22.  Continuation  of  the  moral  thoughts  of  Chinese  authors. 

23.  Invocation  for  the  country. 

24.  Extracts  from  the  moral  thoughts  of  Theognis. 

25.  Invocation,  Creator  of  man. 

26.  Ode,  No.  IX.  Upon  Death. 

27.  Extracts  from  the  book  of  the  Moral  Universal,  upon  happi- 

ness. 

28.  Ode,  No.  X.  Supreme  Author  of  Nature. 


LETTER   TO   MR.    ERSKINE.  183 

INTRODUCTION, 

ENTITLED 
PRECISE  HISTORY  OF  THE  THEOPHILANTHROPISTS. 

"Towards  the  month  of  Vendimiaire,  of  the  year  5,  (Sept 
1796)  there  appeared  at  Paris  a  small  work,  entitled,  Manuel  of 
the  Theoantropophiles,  since  called,  for  the  sake   of  easier  pro- 
nunciation, Theophilantropes,   (Theophilanthropists,)   published 
by  C — . 

"  The  worship  set  forth  in  this  Manuel,  of  which  the  origin  is 
from  the  beginning  of  the  world,  was  then  professed  by  some  fam- 
ilies in  the  silence  of  domestic  life.  But  no  sooner  was  the  Man- 
uel published,  than  some  persons,  respectable  for  their  knowledge 
and  their  manners,  saw,  in  the  formation  of  a  society  open  to  the 
public,  an  easy  method  of  spreading  moral  religion,  and  of  leading 
by  degrees,  great  numbers  to  the  knowledge  thereof,  who  appear 
to  have  forgotten  it.  This  consideration  ought  of  itself  not  to 
leave  indifferent  those  persons  who  know  that  morality  and  reli- 
gion, which  is  the  most  solid  support  thereof,  are  necessary  to  the 
maintenance  of  society,  as  well  as  to  the  happiness  of  the  individ- 
ual. These  considerations  determined  the  families  of  the  Theo- 
philanthropists to  unite  publicly  for  the  exercise  of  their  worship. 

a  The  first  society  of  this  kind  opened  in  the  month  of  Nivose, 
year  5,  (Jan.  1797)  in  the  street  Dennis,  No.  34,  corner  of  Lom- 
bard-street. The  care  of  conducting  this  society  was  undertak- 
en by  five  fathers  of  families.  They  adopted  the  Manuel  of  the 
Theophilanthropists.  They  agreed  to  hold  their  days  of  public 
worship  on  the  days  corresponding  to  Sundays,  but  without  mak- 
ing this  a  hindrance  to  other  societies  to  choose  such  other  day 
as  they  thought  more  convenient.  Soon  after  this,  more  socie- 
ties were  opened,  of  which  some  celebrate  on  the  decadi  (tenth 
day)  and  others  on  the  Sunday  :  it  was  also  resolved,  that  the 
committee  should  meet  one  hour  each  week  for  the  purpose  of 
preparing  or  examining  the  discourses  and  lectures  proposed  for 
the  next  general  assembly.  That  the  general  assemblies  should 
be  called  Fetes  (festivals)  religious  and  moral.  That  those  fes- 
tivals should  be  conducted  in  principle  and  form,  in  a  manner, 
as  not  to  be  considered  as  the  festivals  of  an  exclusive  worship  ; 
and  that  in  recalling  those  who  might  not  be  attached  to  any  par- 
ticular worship,  those  festivals  might  also  be  attended  as  moral 
exercises  by  disciples  of  every  sect,  and  consequently  avoid,  by 
scrupulous  care,  every  thing  that  might  make  the  society  appear 
under  the  name  of  a  sect.  The  society  adopts  neither  rites  nor 
priesthood ,  and  it  will  never  lose  sight  of  the  resolution  not  to 
advance  any  thing,  as  a  society,  inconvenient  to  any  sect  or 
sects,  in  any  time  or  country,  and  under  any  government. 

"  It  will  be  seen,  that  it  is  so  much  the  more  easy  for  the  soci- 
etv  to  keep  within  this  circle,  because,  that  the  dogmas  of  the  The- 


184  LETTER    TO   MR.    ERSKINE. 

©philanthropists  are  those  upon  which  all  the  sects  have  agreed, 
that  their  moral  is  that  upon  which  there  has  never  been  the  least 
dissent ;  and  that  the  name  they  have  taken,  expresses  the  double 
end  of  all  the  sects,  that  of  leading  to  the  adoration  of  God  and 
love  of  man. 

"  The  Theophilanthropists  do  not  call  themselves  the.  disciples 
of  such  or  such  a  man.  They  avail  themselves  of  the  wise  pre- 
cepts that  have  been  transmitted  by  writers  of  all  countries  and  in 
all  ages.  The  reader  will  find  in  the  discourses,  lectures,  hymns, 
and  canticles,  which  the  Theophilanthropists  have  adopted  for 
their  religious  and  moral  festivals,  and  which  they  present  under 
the  title  of  Annee  Religieuse,  extracts  from  moralists,  ancient  and 
modern,  divested  of  maxims  too  severe,  or  too  loosely  conceived, 
or  contrary  to  piety,  whether  towards  God  or  towards  man." 

Next  follow  the  dogmas  of  the  Theophilanthropists,  or  things 
they  profess  to  believe.  These  are  but  two,  and  are  thus  ex- 
pressed, les  Theophilantropes  croient  a  ^existence  de  DieUj  et  a  Viin- 
inortalite  de  Fame.  The  Theophilanthropists  believe  in  the  exis- 
tence of  God,  and  the  immortality  of  the  soul. 

The  Manuel  of  the  Theophilanthropists,  a  small  volume  of 
sixty  pages,  duodecimo,  is  published  separately,  as  is  also  their 
catechism,  which  is  of  the  same  size.  The  principles  of  the  The- 
ophilanthropists are  the  same  as  those  published  in  the  first  part 
of  the  Age  of  Reason  in  1793,  and  in  the  second  part  in  1795. — 
The  Theophilanthropists,  as  a  society,  are  silent  upon  all  the 
things  they  do  not  profess  to  believe,  as  the  sacredness  .of  the 
books  called  the  Bible,  &c.  &c.  They  profess  the  immortality  of 
the  soul,  but  they  are  silent  on  the  immortality  of  the  body,  or 
that  which  the  church  calls  the  resurrection.  The  author  of  the 
Age  of  Reason  gives  reasons  for  every  thing  he  disbelieves,  as  well 
as  for  those  he  believes;  and  where  this  cannot  be  done  with  safe- 
ty, the  government  is  a  despotism,  and  the  church  an  inquisition. 

It  is  more  than  three  years  since  the  first  part  of  the  Age  of 
Reason  was  published,  and  more  than  a  year  and  a  half  since  the 
publication  of  the  second  part :  the  Bishop  of  Llandaff  undertook 
to  write  an  answer  to  the  second  part ;  and  it  was  not  until  after 
it  was  known  that  the  author  of  the  Age  of  Reason  would  reply  to 
the  bishop,  that  the  prosecution  against  the  book  was  set  on  foot ; 
and  which  is  said  to  be  carried  on  by  some  clergy  of  the  English 
church.  If  the  bishop  is  one  of  them,  and  the  object  be  to  pre- 
vent an  exposure  of  the  numerous  and  gross  errors  he  has  com- 
mitted in  his  work,  (and  which  he  wrote  when  report  said  that 
Thomas  Paine  was  dead,)  it  is  a  confession  that  he  feels  the 
weakness  of  his  cause,  and  finds  himself  unable  to  maintain  it. 
In  this  case  he  has  given  me  a  triumph  I  did  not  seek,  and  Mr 
Erskine,  the  herald  of  the  prosecution,  has  proclaimed  it. 

THOMAS  PAINE 


A 
DISCOURSE 

Delivered  to  the  Society  of  Theophilanthropists9  at  Paris. 


RELIGION  has  two  principal  enemies,  Fanaticism  and  Infidelity, 
or  that  which  is  called  Atheism.  The  first  requires  to  be  com- 
bated by  reason  or  morality,  the  other  by  natural  philosophy. 

The  existence  of  a  God  is  the  first  dogma  of  the  Theophilan- 
thropists.  It  is  upon  this  subject  that  I  solicit  your  attention  :  for 
though  it  has  been  often  treated  of,  and  that  most  sublimely,  the 
subject  is  inexhaustible ;  and  there  will  always  remain  something 
to  be  said  that  has  not  been  before  advanced.  I  go  therefore  to 
open  the  subject,  and  to  crave  your  attention  to  the  end. 

The  universe  is  the  Bible  of  a  true  Theophilanthropist.  It  is 
there  that  he  reads  of  God.  It  is  there  that  the  proofs  of  his  ex- 
istence are  to  be  sought  and  to  be  found.  As  to  written  or  printed 
books,  by  whatever  name  they  are  called,  they  are  the  works  of 
man's  hands,  and  carry  no  evidence  in  themselves  that  God  is  the 
author  of  any  of  them.  It  must  be  in  something  that  man  could 
not  make,  that  we  must  seek  evidence  for  our  belief,  and  that 
something  is  the  universe ;  the  true  Bible  ;  the  inimitable  work 
of  God. 

Contemplating  the  universe,  the  whole  system  of  creation,  hi 
this  point  of  light,  we  shall  discover  that  all  that  which  is  called 
natural  philosophy  is  properly  a  divine  study.  It  is  the  study  of 
God  through  his  works.  It  is  the  best  study,  by  which  we  can 
arrive  at  a  knowledge  of  his  existence,  and  the  only  one  by  which 
we  can  gain  a  glimpse  of  his  perfection. 

Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  power  ?  We  see  it  in  the  im- 
mensity of  the  creation.  Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  wisdom  ? 
We  see  it  in  the  unchangeable  order  by  which  the  incomprehensi- 
ble WHOLE  is  governed.  Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  munifi- 
cence ?  We  see  it  in  the  abundance  with  which  he  fills  the  earth. 
Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  mercy  ?  We  see  it  in  his  not  with- 
holding that  abundance  even  from  the  unthankful.  In  fine,  do  we 
want  to  know  what  God  is?  Search  not  written  or  printed  books, 
but  the  scripture  called  the  Creation. 

It  has  been  the  error  of  the  schools  to  teach  astronomy,  and  all 
the  other  sciences,  and  subjects  of  natural  philosophy,  as  accom- 
plishments only  ;  whereas  they  should  be  taught  theologically,  or 
with  reference  to  the  Being  who  is  the  author  of  them  :  for  all  the 
principles  of  science  are  of  divine  origin.  Man  cannot  make,  or 
invent,  or  contrive  principles.  He  can  only  discover  them  ;  and 
he  ought  to  look  through  the  discovery  to  the  author. 
16* 


186  DISCOURSE    TO    THE    SOCIETY 

When  we  examine  an  extraordinary  piece  of  machinery,  an  as- 
tonishing pile  of  architecture,  a  well  executed  statue,  or  an  highly 
finished;  painting,  where  life  and  action  are  imitated,  and  habit 
only  prevents  our  mistaking  a  surface  of  light  and  shade  for  cu- 
bical solidity,  our  ideas  are  naturally  led  to  think  of  the  extensive 
genius  and  talents  of  the  artist.  When  we  study  the  elements  of 
geometry,  we  think  of  Euclid.  When  we  speak  of  gravitation, 
we  think  of  Newton.  How  then  is  it,  that  when  we  study  the 
works  of  God  in  the  creation,  we  stop  short,  and  do  not  think  of 
God  ?  It  is  from  the  error  of  the  schools  in  having  taught  those 
subjects  as  accomplishments  only,  and  thereby  separated  the 
study  of  them  from  the  Being  who  is  the  author  of  them. 

The  schools  have  made  the  study  of  theology  to  consist  in  the 
study  of  opinions  in  written  or  printed  books  ;  whereas  theology 
should  be  studied  in  the  works  or  book  of  the  Creation.  The 
study  of  theology  in  books  of  opinions  has  often  produced  fanati- 
cism, rancour,  and  cruelty  of  temper ;  and  from  hence  have  pro- 
ceeded the  numerous  persecutions,  the  fanatical  quarrels,  the  re- 
ligious burnings  and  massacres,  that  have  desolated  Europe.  But 
the  study  of  theology  in  the  works  of  the  Creation  produces  a 
direct  contrary  effect.  The  mind  becomes  at  once  enlightened 
and  serene;  a  copy  of  the  scene  it  beholds;  information  and  adora- 
tion go  hand  in  hand;  and  all  the  social  faculties  become  enlarged. 

The  evil  that  has  resulted  from  the  error  of  the  schools,  in 
teaching  natural  philosophy  as  an  accomplishment  only,  has  been 
that  of  generating  in  the  pupils  a  species  of  Atheism.  Instead  of 
looking  through  the  works  of  the  creation  to  the  Creator  himself, 
they  stop  short,  and  employ  the  knowledge  they  acquire  to  create 
doubts  of  his  existence.  They  labour  with  studied  ingenuity  to 
ascribe  every  thing  they  behold  to  innate  properties  of  matter  ; 
and  jump  over  all  the  rest,  by  saying,  that  matter  is  eternal. 

Let  us  examine  this  subject ;  it  is  worth  examining  ;  for  if  we 
examine  it  through  all  its  cases,  the  result  will  be,  that  the  exist- 
ence of  a  superior  cause,  or  that  which  man  calls  God,  will  be 
discoverable  by  philosophical  principles. 

In  the  first  place,  admitting  matter  to  have  properties,  as  we  see 
it  has,  the  question  still  remains,  how  came  matter  by  those  pro- 
perties? To  this  they  will  answer,  that  matter  possessed  those 
properties  eternally.  This  is  not  solution,  but  assertion  ;  and  to 
deny  it  is  equally  impossible  of  proof  as  to  assert  it.  It  is  then 
necessary  to  go  further  ;  and  therefore  I  say,  if  there  exists  a  cir- 
cumstance that  is  not  a  property  of  matter,  and  without  which  the 
universe,  or,  to  speak  in  a  limited  degree,  the  solar  system,  com- 
posed of  planets  and  a  sun,  could  not  exist  a  moment ;  all  the  ar- 
guments of  Atheism,  drawn  from  properties  of  matter,  and  applied 
to  account  for  the  universe,  will  be  overthrown,  and  the  existence 
of  a  superior  cause,  or  that  which  man  calls  God,  becomes  dis- 
coverable, as  is  before  said,  by  natural  philosophy. 


OF    THEOPHILANTHROPISTS.  187 

I  go  now  to  show  that  such  a  circumstance  exists,  and  what  it 
is  : 

The  universe  is  composed  of  matter,  and  as  a  system  is  sus- 
tained by  motion.  Motion  is  not  a  properly  of  matter,  and  with- 
out this  motion,  the  solar  system  could  not  exist.  Were  motion  a 
property  of  matter,  that  undiscovered  and  undiscoverable  thing 
called  perpetual  motion  would  establish  itself.  It  is  because  mo- 
tion is  not  a  property  of  matter  that  perpetual  motion  is  an  impos- 
sibility in  the  hand  of  every  being  but  that  of  the  Creator  of  mo- 
tion. When  the  pretenders  to  Atheism  can  produce  perpetual 
motion,  and  not  till  then,  they  may  expect  to  be  credited. 

The  natural  state  of  matter,  as  to  place,  is  a  state  of  rest.  Mo- 
tion or  change  of  place,  is  the  effect  of  an  external  cause  acting 
upon  matter.  As-to  that  faculty  of  matter  that  is  called  gravita- 
tion, it  is  the  influence  which  two  or  more  bodies  have  recipro- 
cally on  each  other  to  unite  and  be  at  rest.  Every  thing  which 
has  hitherto  been  discovered  with  respect  to  the  motion  of  the 
planets  in  the  system,  relates  only  to  the  laws  by  which  motion 
acts,  and  not  to  the  cause  of  motion.  Gravitation,  so  far  from  be- 
ing the  cause  of  motion  to  the  planets  that  compose  the  solar  sys- 
tem, would  be  the  destruction  of  the  solar  system,  were  revolu- 
tionary motion  to  cease  ;  for  as  the  action  of  spinning  upholds  a 
top,  the  revolutionary  motion  upholds  the  planets  in  their  orbits, 
and  prevents  them  from  gravitating  and  forming  one  mass  with 
the  sun.  In  one  sense  of  the  word,  philosophy  knows,  and  Athe- 
ism says,  that  matter  is  in  perpetual  motion.  But  motion  here 
refers  to  the  state  of  matter,  and  that  only  on  the  surface  of  the 
earth.  It  is  either  decomposition,  which  is  continually  destroying 
the  form  of  bodies  of  matter,  or  re-composition,  which  renews  that 
matter  in  the  same  or  another  form,  as  the  decomposition  of  ani- 
mal or  vegetable  substances  enter  into  the  composition  of  other 
bodies.  But  the  motion  that  upholds  the  solar  system  is  of  an 
entire  different  kind,  and  is  not  a  property  of  matter.  It  operates 
also  to  an  entire  different  effect.  It  operates  to  perpetual  preser- 
vation, and  to  prevent  any  change  in  .the  state  of  the  system. 

Giving  then  to  matter  all  the  properties  which  philosophy  knows 
it  has,  or  all  that  Atheism  ascribes  to* it,  and  can  prove,  and  even 
supposing  matter  to  be  eternal,  it  will  not  account  for  the  system 
of  the  universe,  or  of  the  solar  system,  because  it  will  not  account 
for  motion,  and  it  is  motion  that  preserves  it.  When,  therefore, 
we  discover  a  circumstance  of  such  immense  importance,  that 
without  it  the  universe  could  not  exist,  and  for  which  neither  mat- 
ter, nor  any,  nor  all  tl\e  properties  of  matter  cannot  account ;  we 
are  by  necessity  forced  into  the  rational  and  comfortable  belief 
of  the  existence  of  a  cause  superior  to  matter,  and,  that  cause  man 
calls  God. 

As  to  that  which  is  called  nature,  it  is  no  other  than  the  laws 
by  which  motion  and  action  of  every  kind,  with  respect  to  unin- 


188  DISCOURSE    TO    THE    SOCIETY 

telligible  matter  is  regulated.  And  when  we  speak  of  looking 
through  nature  up  to  nature's  God,  we  speak  philosophically  the 
same  rational  language  as  when  we  speak  of  looking  through  hu- 
man laws  up  to  the  power  that  ordained  them. 

God  is  the  power  or  first  cause,  nature  is  the  law,  and  matter  is 
the  subject  acted  upon. 

But  infidelity,  by  ascribing  every  phenomenon  to  properties  of 
matter,  conceives  a  system  for  which  it  cannot  account,  and  yet 
it  pretends  to  demonstration.  It  reasons  from  what  it  sees  on  the 
surface  of  the  earth,  but  it  does  not  carry  itself  on  the  solar  sys- 
tem existing  by  motion.  It  sees  upon  the  surface  a  perpetual 
decomposition  and  recomposition  of  matter.  It  sees  that  an  oak 
produces  an  acorn,  an  acorn  an  oak,  a  bird  an  egg,  an  egg  a  bird, 
and  so  on.  In  things  of  this  kind  it  sees  something  which  it  calls 
natural  cause,  but  none  of  the  causes  it  sees  is  the  cause  of  that 
motion  which  preserves  the  solar  system. 

Let  us  contemplate  this  wonderful  and  stupendous  system  con- 
sisting of  matter  and  existing  by  motion.  It  is  not  matter  in  a 
state  of  rest,  nor  in  a  state  of  decomposition  or  recomposition.  It 
is  matter  systematized  in  perpetual  orbicular  or  circular  motion. 
As  a  system  that  motion  is  the  life  of  it,  as  animation  is  life  to  an 
animal  body  ;  deprive  the  system  of  motion,  and,  as  a  system,  it 
must  expire.  Who  then  breathed  into  the  system  the  life  of  mo- 
tion? What  power  impelled  the  planets  to  move,  since  motion  is 
not  a  property  of  the  matter  of  which  they  are  composed  ?  If  we 
contemplate  the  immense  velocity  of  this  motion,  our  wonder  be- 
comes increased,  and  our  adoration  enlarges  itself  in  the  same 
proportion.  To  instance  only  one  of  the  planets,  that  of  the  earth 
we  inhabit,  its  distance  from  the  sun,  the  centre  of  the  orbits  of 
all  the  planets,  is,  according  to  observations  of  the  transit  of  the 
planet  Venus,  about  one  hundred  million  miles  ;  consequently,  the 
diameter  of  the  orbit  or  circle  in  which  the  earth  moves  round  the 
sun,  is  double  that  distance  ;  and  the  measure  of  the  circumfer- 
ence of  the  orbit,  taken  as  three  times  its  diameter,  is  six  hundred 
million  miles.  The  earth  performs  this  voyage  in  365  days  and 
some  hours,  and  consequently  moves  at  the  rate  of  more  than  one 
million  six  hundred  thousand  miles  every  twenty-four  hours. 

Where  will  infidelity,  where  will  Atheism  find  cause  for  this 
astonishing  velocity  of  motion,  never  ceasing,  never  varying,  and 
which  is  the  preservation  of  the  earth  in  its  orbit  ?  It  is  not  by 
reasoning  from  an  acorn  to  an  oak,  or  from  any  change  in  the 
state  of  matter  on  the  surface  of  the  earth,  that  this  can  be  ac- 
counted for.  Its  cause  is  not  to  be  found  in  matter,  nor  in  any 
thing  we  call  nature.  The  Atheist  who  affects  to  reason,  and 
the  fanatic  who  rejects  reason,  plunge  themselves  alike  into  in- 
extricable difficulties.  The  one  perverts  the  sublime  and  en- 
lightening study  of  natural  philosophy  into  a  deformity  of  absur- 
dities by  not  reasoning  to  the  end.  The  other  loses  himself  in 


OF   THEOFHILANTHROPISTS.  189 

the  obscurity  of  metaphysical  theories,  and  dishonours  the  Crea- 
tor, by  treating  the  study  of  his  works  with  contempt.  The  one 
is  a  half-rational  of  whom  there  is  some  hope,  the  other  a  vision- 
ary to  whom  we  must  be  charitable. 

When  at  first  thought  we  think  of  a  Creator,  our  ideas  appear 
to  us  undefined  and  confused  ;  but  if  we  reason  philosophically, 
those  ideas  can  be  easily  arranged  and  simplified.  //  is  a  Being 
whose  power  is  equal  to  his  will.  Observe  the  nature  of  the  will  of 
man.  It  is  of  an  infinite  quality.  We  cannot  conceive  the  pos- 
sibility of  limits  to  the  will.  Observe  on  the  other  hand,  how 
exceedingly  limited  is  his  power  of  acting  compared  with  the  na- 
ture of  his  will.  Suppose  the  power  equal  to  the  will,  and  man 
would  be  a  God.  He  would  will  himself  eternal,  and  be  so.  He 
could  will  a  creation  and  could  make  it.  In  this  progressive  rea- 
soning, we  see  in  the  nature  of  the  will  of  man,  half  of  that  which 
we  conceive  in  thinking  of  God  ;  add  the  other  half,  and  we  have 
the  whole  idea  of  a  being  who  could  make  the  universe,  and  sus- 
tain it  by  perpetual  motion  ;  because  he  could  create  that  motion. 

We  know  nothing  of  the  capacity  of  the  will  of  animals,  but  we 
know  a  great  deal  of  the  difference  of  their  powers.  For  ex- 
ample, how  numerous  are  the  degrees,  and  how  immense  is  the 
difference  of  power,  from  a  mite  to  a  man.  Since  then  every 
thing  we  see  below  us  shows  a  progression  of  power,  where  is 
the  difficulty  in  supposing  that  there  is,  at  the  summit  of  all  things, 
a  Being  in  whom  an  infinity  of  power  unites  with  the  infinity  of 
the  will.  When  this  simple  idea  presents  itself  to  our  mind,  we 
have  the  idea  of  a  perfect  Being  that  man  calls  God. 

It  is  comfortable  to  live  under  the  belief  of  the  existence  of  an 
infinitely  protecting  power  ;  and  it  is  an  addition  to  that  comfort 
to  know,  that  such  a  belief  is  not  a  mere  conceit  of  the  imagina- 
tion, as  many  of  the  theories  that  are  called  religious  are  ;  nor 
a  belief  founded  only  on  tradition  or  received  opinion,  but  is  a 
belief  deducible  by  the  action  of  reason  upon  the  things  that 
compose  the  system  of  the  universe  ;  a  belief  arising  out  of  visi- 
ble facts  :  and  so  demonstrable  is  the  truth  of  this  belief,  that  if 
no  such  belief  had  existed,  the  persons  who  now  controvert  it, 
would  have  been  the  persons  who  would  have  produced  and 
propagated  it,  because,  by  beginning  to  reason  they  would  have 
been  led  on  to  reason  progressively  to  the  end,  and  thereby  have 
discovered  that  matter  and  all  the  properties  it  has,  will  not  ac- 
count for  the  system  of  the  universe,  and  that  there  must  neces- 
sarily be  a  superior  cause. 

It  was  the  excess  to  which  imaginary  systems  of  religion  had 
been  carried,  and  the  intolerance,  persecutions,  burnings,  and 
massacres,  they  occasioned,  that  first  induced  certain  persons  to 
propagate  infidelity  ;  thinking,  that  upon  the  whole  it  was  better 
not  to  believe  at  all,  than  to  believe  a  multitude  of  things  and 
eomplicated  creeds,  that  occasioned  so  much  mischief  in  the 
world.  But  those  days  are  past  ;  persecution  has  ceased^  and 


190  DISCOURSE,  Sec. 

he  antidote  then  set  up  against  it  has  no  longer  even  the  shadow 
of  an  apology.  We  profess  and  we  proclaim  in  peace,  the  pure, 
unmixed,  comfortable,  and  rational  belief  of  a  God,  as  manifested 
to  us  in  the  universe.  We  do  this  without  any  apprehension  of 
that  belief  being  made  a  cause  of  persecution,  as  other  beliefs 
have  been,  or  of  suffering  persecution  ourselves.  To  God,  and 
not  to  man,  are  all  men  to  account  for  their  belief. 

It  has  been  well  observed  at  the  first  institution  of  this  society, 
that  the  dogmas  it  professes  to  believe,  are  from  the  commence- 
ment of  the  world  ;  that  they  are  novelties,  but  are  confessedly 
the  basis  of  all  systems  of  religion,  however  numerous  and  con- 
tradictory they  may  be.  All  men  in  the  outset  of  the  religion 
they  profess  are  Theophilanthropists.  It  is  impossible  to  form  any 
system  of  religion  without  building  upon  those  principles,  and 
therefore  they  are  not  sectarian  principles,  unless  we  suppose 
a  sect  composed  of  all  the  world. 

I  have  said  in  the  course  of  this  discourse,  that  the  study  of 
natural  philosophy  is  a  divine  study,  because  it  is  the  study  of 
the  works  of  God  in  the  Creation.  If  we  consider  theology  upon 
this  ground,  what  an  extensive  field  of  improvement  in  things 
both  divine  and  human  opens  itself  before  us.  All  the  princi- 
ples of  science  are  of  divine  origin.  It  was  not  man  that  invent- 
ed the  principles  on  which  astronomy,  and  every  branch  of 
mathematics  are  founded  and  studied.  It  was  not  man  that  gave 
properties  to  the  circle  and  triangle.  Those  principles  are  eter- 
nal and  immutable.  We  see  in  them  the  unchangeable  nature 
of  the  Divinity.  We  see  in  them  immortality,  and  immortality 
existing  after  the  material  figures  that  express  those  properties 
are  dissolved  in  dust. 

The  society  is  at  present  in  its  infancy,  and  its  means  are 
small  ;  but  I  wish  to  hold  in  view  the  subject  I  allude  to,  and  in- 
stead of  teaching  the  philosophical  branches  of  learning  as  or- 
namental accomplishments  only,  as  they  have  hitherto  been 
taught,  to  teach  them  in  a  manner  that  shall  combine  theological 
knowledge  with  scientific  instruction  ;  to  do  this  to  the  best  ad- 
vantage, some  instruments  will  be  necessary  for  the  purpose  of 
explanation,  of  which  the  society  is  not  yet  possessed.  But  as  the 
views  of  the  society  extend  to  public  good,  as  well  as  to  that  of 
the  individual,  and  as  its  principles  can  have  no  enemies,  means 
may  be  devised  to  procure  them. 

If  we  unite  to  the  present  instruction,  a  series  of  lectures  on 
the  ground  I  have  mentioned,  we  shall,  in  the  first  place,  render 
theology  the  most  delightful  and  entertaining  of  all  studies.  In 
the  next  place,  we  shall  give  scientific  instruction  to  those  who 
could  not  otherwise  obtain  it.  The  mechanic  of  every  profession 
will  there  be  taught  the  mathematical  principles  necessary  to 
render  him  a  proficient  in  his  art.  The  cultivator  will  there  see 
developed,  the  principles  of  vegetation  ;  while,  at  the  same  !i:nc, 
they  will  be  led  to  see  the  hand  of  God  in  all  these  things 


LETTER  TO  CAMILLE  JORDAN, 

ONE  OF  THE  COUNCIL  OF  FIVE  HUNDRED, 

OCCASIONED  BY 'HIS  REPORT  ON  THE  PRIESTS,  PUBLIC  WOR- 
SHIP, AND  THE  BELLS. 


CITIZEN  REPRESENTATIVE, 

AS  every  thing  in  your  report,  relating  to  what  you  call  wor- 
ship, connects  itself  with  the  books  called  the  Scriptures,  I  begin 
with  a  quotation  therefrom.  It  may  serve  to  give  us  some  idea 
of  the  fanciful  origin  and  fabrication  of  those  books.  2  Chroni- 
cles, chap,  xxxiv.  ver.  14,  &c.  "Hilkiah,  the  priest,  found  the 
book  of  the  law  of  the  Lord  given  by  Moses.  And  HUkiah,  the 

Eriest,  said  to  Shaphan,  the  scribe,  I  have  found  the  book  of  the 
iw  in  the  house  of  the  Lord,  and  Hilkiah  delivered  the  book  to 
Shaphan.  And  Shaphan,  the  scribe,  told  the  king  (Josiah)  say- 
ing, Hilkiah,  the  priest,  hath  given  me  a  book." 

This  pretended  finding  was  about  a  thousand  years  after  the 
time  that  Moses  is  said  to  have  lived.  Before  this  pretended  find- 
ing there  was  no  such  thing  practised  or  known  in  the  world  as 
that  which  is  called  the  law  of  Moses.  This  being  the  case,  there 
is  every  apparent  evidence,  that  the  books  called  the  books  of 
Moses  (and  which  make  the  first  part  of  what  are  called  the  Scrip- 
tures) are  forgeries  contrived  between  a  priest  and  a  limb  of  the 
law,*  Hilkiah,  and  Shaphan,  the  scribe,  a  thousand  years  after 
Moses  is  said  to  have  been  dead. 

Thus  much  for  the  first  part  of  the  Bible.  Every  other  part  is 
marked  with  circumstances  equally  as  suspicious.  We  ought, 
therefore,  to  be  reverentially  careful  how  we  ascribe  books  as  his 
wordy  of  which  there  is  no  evidence,  and  against  which  there  is 
abundant  evidence  to  the  contrary,  and  every  cause  to  suspect  im- 
position. 

In  your  report  you  speak  continually  of  something  by  the  name 
of  worship,  and  you  confine  yourself  to  speak  of  one  kind  only, 
as  if  there  were  but  one,  and  that  one  was  unquestionably  true 

The  modes  of  worship  are  as  various  as  the  sects  are  numer- 
ous ;  and  amidst  all  this  variety  and  multiplicity  there  is  but  one 
article  of  belief  in  which  every  religion  in  the  world  agrees. 
That  article-has  universal  sanction.  It  is  the  belief  of  a  God,  or 
what  the  Greeks  described  by  the  word  TheisM,  and  the  Latins 
by  that  of  Deism.  Upon  this  one  article  have  been  erected  all 

*  It  happens  that  Caraille  Jordan  is  a  limb  of  the  law. 


192  LETTER  TO  CAMILLE  JORDAN. 

the  different  superstructures  of  creeds  and  ceremonies  continu- 
ally warring  with  each  other  that  now  exists  or  ever  existed. 
But  the  men  most  and  best  informed  upon  the  subject  of  theolo- 
gy rest  themselves  upon  this  universal  article,  and  hold  all  the 
various  superstructures  erected  thereon  to  be  at  least  doubtful, 
if  not  altogether  artificial. 

The  intellectual  part  of  religion  is  a  private  affair  between 
every  man  and  his  Maker,  and  in  which  no  third  party  has  any 
right  to  interfere.  The  practical  part  consists  in  our  doing  good 
to  each  other.  But  since  religion  has  been  made  into  a  trade, 
the  practical  part  has  been  made  to  consist  of  ceremonies  perform- 
ed by  men  called  Priests  ;  and  the  people  have  been  amused 
with  ceremonial  shows,  processions,  and  bells.*  By  devices  of 
this  kind  true  religion  has  been  banished  ;  and  such  means  have 
been  found  out  to  extract  money  even  from  the  pockets  of  the 
poor,  instead  of  contributing  to  their  relief. 

*  The  precise  date  of  the  invention  of  bells  cannot  be  traced.  The  ancients,  it  ap- 
pears from  Martial,  Juvenal,  Suetonius  and  others,  had  an  article  named  tintinuabula, 
(usually  translated  bell,)  by  which  the  Romans  were  summoned  to  their  baths  and  pub- 
lic places.  It  seems  most  probable,  that  the  description  of  bells  now"  used  in  churches, 
were  invented  about  the  year  400,  and  generally  adopted  before  the  commence- 
ment of  the  seventh  century.  Previous  to  their  invention,  however,  sounding  brass, 
and  sometimes  basins,  were  used ;  and  to  die  present  day  the  Greek  church  have 
boards,  or  iron  plates,  full  of  holes,  which  they  strike  with  a  hammer,  or  mallet,  to 
summon  the  priests  and  others  to  divine  service.  We  may  also  remark,  that  in  our 
own  country,  it  was  the  custom  in  monasteries  to  visit  every  person's  cell  early  in  the 
morning,  and  knock  on  the  door  with  a  similar  instrument,  called  the  wakening  mal- 
let— doubtless  no  very  pleasing  intrusion  on  the  slumbers  of  the  Monks. 

But,  the  use  of  bells,  having  been  established,  it  was  found  that  devils  were  ter- 
rified av  the  sound,  and  slunk  in  haste  away  ;  in  consequence  of  which  it  was  thought 
necessary  to  baptize  them  in  a  solemn  manner,  which  appears  to  have  teen  first  done 
by  Pope  John  XII.  A.  D.  968.  A  record  of  this  practice  still  exists  in  the  Tom  of 
Lincoln,  and  the  great  Tom  at  Oxford,  &c. 

Having  thus  laid  the  foundation  of  superstitious  veneration  in  the  hearts  of  the  com- 
mon people,  it  cannot  be  a  matter  of  surprise,  that  they  were  eoon  used  at  rejoicings, 
and  high  festivals  in  the  church  (for  the  purpope  of  driving  away  any  evil  spirit  which 
might  be  in  the  neighbourhood,)  as  well  as  on  the  arrival  of  any  great  personage, 
on  which  occasion  the  usual  fee  was  one  penny. 

One  other  custom  remains  to  be  explained,  viz.  tolling  bells  on  the  occasion  of  any 
person's  death,  a  custom  which,  in  the  manner  now  practised,  is  totally  different  from 
its  original  institution.  It  appears  to  have  been  used  as  early  as  the  7th  century, 
when  bells  were  first  generally  vised,  and  to  have  been  denominated  the  soul  bell,  (as 
it  signified  the  departing  of  die  soul,)  as  also,  the  passing  bell.  Thus  Wheatly  tells 
us,  "Our  church,  in  imitation  of  the  Saints  of  former  ages,  calls  in  the  Minister  and 
others  who  are  at  hand,  to  assist  their  brodier  in  his  last  extremity  ;  in  order  to  this, 
she  directs  a  bell  should  be  tolled  when  any  one  is  passing  out  of  this  life."  Durand 
also  says — "  When  any  one  is  dying,  bells  must  be  tolled,  that  the  people  may  put 
up  their  prayers  for  him  ;  let  this  be  done  twice  for  a  woman,  and  thrice  for  a  man. 
If  for  a  clergyman,  as  many  times  as  he  had  orders;  and  at  the  conclusion,  a  peal 
on  all  the  bells,  to  distinguish  the  quality  of  the  person  for  whom  die  people  are  to  put 
up  their  prayers." — From  these  passages  it  appears  evident  that  the  bell  was  to  be 
tolled  before  a  person's  decease  rather  than  after,  as  at  the  present  day  ;  and  dial 
the  object  was  to  obtain  die  prayers  of  all  who  heard  it,  for  the  repose  of  the  soul  of 
their  departing  neighbour.  At  first,  when  die  tolling  took  place  after  the  person's 
decease,  it  was  deemed  superstitious,  and  was  partially  disused,  which  was  found  ma- 
terially to  affect  the  revenue  of  the  church.  The  priesthood  having  removed  the  ob- 
jection, bells  were  again  tolled,  upon  payment  of  the  customary  fees.  Editor. 


LETTER  TO  CAMILLE  JORDAN.  193 

No  man  ought  to  make  a  living  by  religion.  It  is  dishonest  so 
to  do.  Religion  Js  not  an  act  that  can  be  performed  by  proxy. 
One  person  cannot  act  religion  for  another.  Every  person  must 
perform  it  for  himself :  and  all  that  a  priest  can  do  is  to  take 
from  him,  he  wants  nothing  but  his  money,  and  then  to  riot  on 
his  spoil  and  laugh  at  his  credulity. 

The  only  people,  as  a  professional  sect  of  Christians,  who  pro- 
vide for  the  poor  of  their  society,  are  people  known  by  the  name 
of  Quakers.  Those  men  have  no  priests.  They  assemble  quiet- 
ly in  their  places  of  meetings  and  do  not  disturb  their  neighbours 
with  shows  and  noise  of  bells.  Religion  does  not  unite  itself  to 
show  and  noise.  True  religion  is  without  either.  Where  there 
is  both  there  is  no  true  religion. 

The  first  object  for  inquiry  in  all  cases,  more  especially  in 
matters  of  religious  concern,  is  TRUTH.  We  ought  to  inquire 
into  the  truth  of  whatever  we  are  taught  to  believe,  and  is  it  cer- 
tain that  the  books  called  the  Scriptures  stand,  in  this  respect, 
in  more  than  a  doubtful  predicament.  They  have  been  held  in 
existence,  and  in  a  sort  of  credit  among  the  common  class  of 
people,  by  art,  terror  and  persecution.  They  have  little  or  no 
credit  among  the  erlightened  part,  but  they  have  been  made  the 
means  of  encumbering  the  world  with  a  numerous  priesthood, 
who  have  fattened  on  the  labour  of  the  people,  and  consumed  the 
sustenance  that  ought  to  be  applied  to  the  widows  and  the  poor. 

It  is  a  want  of  feeling  to  talk  of  priests  and  bells  whilst  so  many 
infants  are  perishing  in  the  hospitals,  and  aged  and  infirm  poor 
in  the  streets,  from  the  want  of  necessaries.  The  abundance 
that  France  produces  is  sufficient  for  every  want,  if  rightly  ap- 
plied ;  but  priests  and  bells,  like  articles  of  luxury,  ought  to  be 
the  least  articles  of  consideration. 

We  talk  of  religion.  Let  us  talk  of  truth  ;  for  that  which  is 
not  truth,  is  not  worthy  the  name  of  religion. 

We  see  different  parts  of  the  world  overspread  with  different 
books,  each  of  which,  though  contradictory  to  the  other,  is  said, 
by  its  partisans,  to  be  of  divine  origin,  and  is  made  a  rule  of  faith 
and  practice.  In  countries  under  despotic  governments,  where 
inquiry  is  always  forbidden,  the  people  are  condemned  to  believe 
as  they  have  been  taught  by  their  priests.  This  was  for  many 
centuries  the  case  in  France  ;  but  this  link  in  the  chain  of  slav- 
ery is  happily  broken  by  the  revolution  ;  and,  that  it  may  never 
be  rivetted  again,  let  us  employ  a  part  of  the  liberty  we  enjoy  in 
scrutinizing  into  the  truth.  Let  us  leave  behind  us  some  monu- 
ment, that  we  have  made  the  cause  and  honour  of  our  Creator 
an  object  of  our  care.  If  we  have  been  imposed  upon  by  the 
terrors  of  government  and  the  artifice  of  priests  in  matters  of  re- 
ligion, let  us  do  justice  to  our  Creator  by  examining  into  the  case. 
His  name  is  too  sacred  to  be  affixed  to  any  thing  which  is  fabu- 
17 


194  LETTER    TO    CAMILLE   JORDAN. 

lous  ;  and  it  is  our  duty  to  inquire  whether  we  believe,  or  en- 
courage the  people  to  believe,  in  fables  or  in  facts. 

It  would  be  a  project  worthy  the  situation  we  are  in,  to  invite 
an  inquiry  of  this  kind.  We  have  committees  for  various  ob- 
jects ;  and,  among  others,  a  committee  for  bells.  We  have  in- 
stitutions, academies,  and  societies  for  various  purposes  ;  but  we 
have  none  for  inquiring  into  historical  truth  in  matters  of  religious 
concern. 

They  show  us  certain  books  which  they  call  the  Holy  Scrip- 
tures, the  word  of  God,  and  other* names  of  that  kind  ;  but  we 
ought  to  know  what  evidence  there  is  for  our  believing  them  to  be 
so,  and  at  what  time  they  originated,  and  in  what  manner.  We 
know  that  men  could  make  books,  and  we  know  that  artifice  and 
superstition  could  give  them  a  name ;  could  call  them  sacred. 
But  we  ought  to  be  careful  that  the  name  of  our  Creator  be  not 
abused.  Let  then  all  the  evidence  with  respect  to  those  books 
be  made  a  subject  of  inquiry.  If  there  be  evidence  to  war- 
rant our  belief  of  them,  let  us  encourage  the  propagation  of  it  j 
but  if  not,  let  us  be  careful  not  to  promote  the  cause  of  delusion 
and  falsehood. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  Quakers — that  they  have  no 
priests,  no  bells — and  that  they  are  remarkable  for  their  care  of 
the  poor  of  their  society.  They  are  equally  as  remarkable  for 
the  education  of  their  children.  I  am  a  descendant  of  a  family 
of  that  profession  ;  my  father  was  a  Quaker  ;  and  I  presume  I 
may  be  admitted  an  evidence  of  what  I  assert.  The  seeds  of 
good  principles,  and  the  literary  means  of  advancement  in  the 
world,  are  laid  in  early  life.  Instead,  therefore,  of  consuming 
the  substance  of  the  nation  upon  priests,  whose  life  at  best  is  a 
life  of  idleness,  let  us  think  of  providing  for  the  education  of  those 
who  have  not  the  means  of  doing  it  themselves.  One  good 
school-master  is  of  more  use  than  a  hundred  priests. 

If  we  look  back  at  what  was  the  condition  of  France  under  the 
ancient  regime,  we  cannot  acquit  the  priests  of  corrupting  the 
morals  of  the  nation.  Their  pretended  celibacy  led  them  to  car- 
ry debauchery  and  domestic  infidelity  into  every  family  where 
they  could  gain  admission  ;  and  their  blasphemous  pretensions 
to  forgive  sins,  encouraged  the  commission  of  them.  Why  has 
the  Revolution  of  France  been  stained  with  crimps  which  the 
Revolution  of  the  United  States  of  America  was  not  ?  Men  are 
physically  the  same  in  all  countries:  it  is  education  that 
makes  them  different.  Accustom  a  people  to  believe  that  priests, 
or  any  other  class  of  men,  can  forgive  sins,  and  you  will  have 
sins  in  abundance. 

I  come  now  to  speak  more  particularly  to  the  object  of  your 
report. 

Vou  claim  a  privilege  incompatible  with  the  constitution  and 
with  rights.  The  constitution  protects  equally,  as  it  ought  to  do* 


LETTER   TO    CAMILLE   JORDAN.  195 

profession  of  religion.^  it  gives  .no  exclusive  privilege  to 
any.  The  churches  are  the  common  property  of  all  the  people  ; 
they  are  national  goods,  and  cannot  be  given  exclusively  to  any 
one  profession,  because  the  right  does  not  exist  of  giving  to  any 
one  that  which  appertains  to  all.  It  would  be  consistent  with 
right  that  the  churches  be  sold,  and  the  money  arising  therefrom 
be  invested  as  a  fund  for  the  education  of  children  of  poor  parents 
of  every  profession,  and,  if  more  than  sufficient  for  this  purpose, 
that  the  surplus  be  appropriated  to  the  support  of  the  aged  poor. 
After  this,  every  profession  can  erect  its  own  place  of  worship, 
if  it  choose — support  its  own  priests,  if  it  choose  to  have  any — or 
perform  its  worship  without  priests,  as  the  Quakers  do. 

As  to  bells,  they  are  a  public  nuisance.  If  one  profession  is 
to  have  bells,  another  has  the  right  to  use  the  instruments  ofthe 
same  kind,  or  any  other  noisy  instrument.  Some  may  choose 
to  meet  at  the  sound  of  cannon,  another  at  the  beat  of  drum,  an- 
other at  the  sound  of  trumpets,  and  so  on,  until  the  whole  be- 
comes a  scene  of  general  confusion.  But  if  we  permit  ourselves 
to  think  of  the  state  of  the  sick,  and  the  many  sleepless  nights 
and  days  they  undergo,  we  shall  feel  the  impropriety  of  increas- 
ing their  distress  by  the  noise  of  bells,  or  any  other  noisy  in- 
struments. 

Quiet  and  private  domestic  devotion  neither  offends  nor  in- 
commodes any  body  ;  and  the  constitution  hag  wisely  guarded 
against  the  use  of  externals.  Bells  come  under  this  description, 
and  public  procession  still  more  so — Streets  and  highways  are 
for  the  accommodation  of  persons  following  their  several  occu- 
pations, and  no  sectary  has  a  right  to  incommode  them — If  any 
one  has,  every  other  has  the  same  ;  and  the  meeting  of  various 
and  contradictory  processions  would  be  tumultuous.  Those  who 
formed  the  constitution  had  wisely  reflected  upon  these  cases  : 
and,  whilst  they  were  careful  to  preserve  the  equal  right  of  every 
one,  they  restrained  every  one  from  giving  offence,  or  incommod- 
ing another. 

Men  who,  through  a  long  and  tumultuous  scene  have  lived  in 
retirement,  as  you  have  done,  may  think,  when  they  arrive  at 
power,  that  nothing  is  more  easy  than  to  put  the  world  to  rights 
in  an  instant  ;  they  form  to  themselves  gay  ideas  at  the  success 
of  their  projects  ;  but  they  forget  to  contemplate  the  difficulties, 
that  attend  them,  and  the  dangers  with  which  they  are  pregnant. 
Alas  !  nothing  is  so  easy  as  to  deceive  one's  self.  Did  all  men- 
think  as  you  think,  or  as  you  say,  your  plan  would  need  no  ad- 
vocate, because  it  would  have  no  opposer  ;  but  there  are  millions 
who  think  differently  to  you,  and  who  are  determined  to  be 
neither  the  dupes  nor  the  slaves  of  error  or  design. 

It  is  your  good  fortune  to  arrive  at  power,  when  the  sunshine 
of  prosperity  is  breathing  forth  after  a  long  and  stormy  night. 
The  firmness  of  your  colleagues,  and  of  those  you  have  succeed** 


196  LETTER    TO    CAMILLE    JORDAN. 

ed — the  unabated  energy  of  the  Directory,  and  the  unequalled 
bravery  of  the  armies  of  the  Republic,  have  made  the  way  smooth 
and  easy  to  you.  If  you  look  back  at  the  difficulties  that  existed 
when  the  constitution  commenced,  you  cannot  but  be  confound- 
ed with  admiration  at  the  difference  between  that  time  and  now. 
At  that  moment,  the  Directory  were  placed  like  the  furlorn  hope 
of  an  army,  but  you  were  in  safe  retirement.  They  occupied 
the  post  of  honourable  danger,  and  they  have  merited  well  of 
'their  country. 

You  talk  of  justice  and  benevolence,  but  you  begin  at  the 
wrong  end.  The  defenders  of  your  country,  and  the  deplorable 
state  of  the  poor,  are  objects  of  prior  consideration  to  priests  and 
bells  and  gaudy  processions. 

You  talk  of  peace,  but  your  manner  of  talking  of  it  embarras- 
ses the  Directory  in  making  it,  and  serves  to  prevent  it.  Had 
you  been  an  actor  in  all  the  scenes  of  government  from  its  com- 
mencement, you  would  have  been  too  well  informed  to  have 
brought  forward  projects  that  operate  to  encourage  the  enemy. 
When  you  arrived  at  a  share  in  the  government,  you  found  every 
thing  tending  to  a  prosperous  issue.  A  series  of  victories  un- 
equalled in  the  world,  and  in  the  obtaining  of  which  you  had  no 
share,  preceded  your  arrival.  Every  enemy  but  one  was  sub- 
dued ;  and  that  one  (the  Hanoverian  government  of  England) 
deprived  of  every  hope,  and  a  bankrupt  in  all  its  resources,  was 
suing  for  peace.  In  such  a  state  of  things,  no  new  question  that 
anight  tend  to  agitate  and  anarchize  the  interior,  ought  to  have 
had  place  ;  and  the  project  you  propose,  tends  directly  to  that  end. 

Whilst  France  was  a  monarchy,  and  under  the  government  of 
those  things  called  kings  and  priests,  England  could  always  de- 
feat hex  ;  but  since  France  has  RISEN  TO  BE  A  REPUBLIC, 
the  GOVERNMENT  OF  ENGLAND  crouches  beneath  her,  so  great 
is  the  difference  between  a  government  of  kings  and  priests,  and 
that  which  is  founded  on  the  system  of  representation  But, 
could  the  government  of  England  find  a  way,  under  the  sanction 
of  your,  report,  to  inundate  France  with  a  flood  of  emigrant 
priests,  she  would  find  also  the  way  to  domineer  as  before  ;  she 
would  retrieve  her  shattered  finances  at  your  expence,  and  the 
ringing  of  bells  would  be  the  tocsin  of  your  downfall. 

Did  peace  consist  in  nothing  but  the  cessation  of  war,  it  would 
not  be  difficult  ;  but  Ihe  terms  are  yet  to  be  arranged  ;  and  those 
terms  will  be  better  or  worse,  in  proportion  as  France  and  her 
councils  be  united  or  divided.  That  the  government  of  England 
counts  much  upon  your  report,  and  upon  others  of  a  similar  ten- 
dency, is  what  the  writer  of  this  letter,  who  knows  that  govern- 
ment well,  has  no  doubt.  You  are  but  new  on  the  theatre  of 
government,  and  you  ought  to  suspect  yourself  of  misjudging  ; 
the  experience  of  those  who  have  gone  before  you,  should  be  of 
some  service  to  you. 


LETTER   TO    CAMILLE    JORDAN.  197 

I 

But  if,  in  consequence  of  such  measures  as  you  propose,  you 
put  it  out  of  the  power  of  the  Directory  to  make  a  good  peace, 
and  to  accept  of  terms  you  would  afterwards  reprobate,  it  is  your- 
selves that  must  bear  the  censure. 

You  conclude  your  report  by  the  following  address  to  your 
colleagues  : — 

"  Let  us  hasten,  representatives  of  the  people  !  to  affix  to  these 
tutelary  laws  the  seal  of  our  unanimous  approbation.  All  our 
fellow-citizens  will  learn  to  cherish  political  liberty  from  the  en- 
joyment of  religious  liberty :  you  will  have  broken  the  most 
powerful  arm  of  your  enemies  ;  you  will  have  surrounded  this 
assembly  with  the  most  impregnant  rampart — confidence,  and 
the  people's  love.  O  !  my  colleagues  !  how  desirable  is  that 
popularity  which  is  the  offspring  of  good  laws  !  What  a  conso- 
lation it  will  be  to  us  hereafter,  when  retuined  to  our  own  fire- 
sides, to  hear  from  the  mouths  of  our  fellow-citizens,  these  sim- 
ple expressions — Blessings  reward  you,  men  of  peace  !  you  have 
restored  to  us  our  temples — our  ministers — the  liberty  of  adoring  the 
God  of  our  fathers  :  you  have  recalled  harmony  to  our  families — 
morality  to  our  hearts  :  you  have  made  us  adore  the  legislature  and 
respect  all  its  laws  /" 

Is  it  possible,  citizen  representative,  that  you  crw  be  serious  in 
this  address  ?  Were  the  lives  of  the  priests  under  the  ancient 
regime  such  as  to  justify  any  thing  you  say  of  them  ?  Were 
not  all  France  convinced  of  their  immorality?  Were  they  not 
considered  as  the  patrons  of  debauchery  and  domestic  infidelity, 
and  not  as  the  patrons  of  morals  ?  What  was  their  .pretended 
celibacy  but  perpetual  adultery  ?  What  was  their  blasphemous 
pretensions  to  forgive  sins,  but  an  encouragement  to  the  com- 
mission of  them,  and  a  love  for  their  own  ?  Do  you  want  to  lead 
again  into  France  all  the  vices  of  which  they  have  been  the 
patrons,  and  to  overspread  the  republic  with  English  pensioners! 
It  is  cheaper  to  corrupt  than  to  conquer  ;  and  the  English  gov- 
ernment, unable  to  conquer,  will  stoop  to  corrupt.  Arrogance 
and  meanness,  though  in  appearance  opposite,  are  vices  of  the 
same  heart. 

Instead  of  concluding  in  the  manner  you  have  done,  you  ought 
rather  to  have  said, 

"  O!  my  colleagues  !  we  are  arrived  at  a  glorious  period — a 
period  that  promises  more  than  we  could  have  expected,  and  all 
that  we  could  have  wished.  Let  us  hasten  to  take  into  consider- 
ation the  honours  and  rewards  due  to  our  brave  defenders. 
Let  us  hasten  to  give  encouragement  to  agriculture  and  manu- 
factures, that  commerce  may  reinstate  itself,  and  our  people 
have  employment.  Let  us  review  the  condition  of  the  suffering 
poor,  and  wipe  from  our  country  the  reproach  of  forgetting 
them.  Let  us  devise  means  to  establish  schools  of  instruc- 
tion, that  we  may  banish  the  ignorance  that  the  ancient  regime 
17* 


198  LETTER  TO  CAMILLE  JORDAN. 

of  kings  and  priests  had  spread  among  the  people. — Let  us  pro- 
pagate morality,  unfettered  by  superstition — Let  us  cultivate  jus- 
tice and  benevolence,  that  the  God  of  our  fathers  may  bless  us. 
The  helpless  infant  and  the  aged  poor  cry  to  us  to  remember 
them — Let  not  wretchedness  be  seen  in  our  streets — Let  France 
exhibit  to  the  world  the  glorious  example  of  expelling  ignorance 
and  misery  together. 

"  Let  these,  my  virtuous  colleagues  !  be  the  subject  of  our  care, 
that,  when  we  return  among  our  fellow-citizens,  they  may  say, 
Worthy  representatives  !  you  have  done  well.  You  have  done  jus- 
tice and  honour  to  our  brave  defenders.  You  have  encouraged  agri- 
culture— cherished  our  decayed  manufactures — given  new  life  to 
commerce,  and  employment  to  our  people.  You  have  removed  from 
our  country  the  reproach  of  forgetting  the  poor —  You  have  caused 
the  cry  of  the  orphan  to  cease — You  have  wiped  the  tear  from  the  eye 
of  the  suffering  mother —  You  have  given  comfort  to  the  aged  and  in- 
firm—  You  have  penetrated  into  the  gloomy  recesses  of  wretchedness} 
and  Jiave  banished  it.  Welcome  among  ws,  ye  brave  and  virtuous 
representatives  !  and  may  your  example  be  followed  by  your  sue cess-> 
ors  /" 

THOMAS  PAINE. 

Pans,  1797 


AN 


OF   THE 

PASSAGES  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT, 

QUOTED  FROM  THE  OLD 

AND   CALLED 

PROPHECIES  CONCERNING  JESUS  CHRIST 

TO  WHICH  IS  PREFIXED, 

AHT  ESSAY  OJV  DREAM. 


AN  APPENDIX, 

0 
CONTAINING  THE 

CONTRADICTORY  DOCTRINES  BETWEEN  MATTHEW  AND  MARK ; 

AND   MY 

PRIVATE  THOUGHTS  OJV  A  FUTURE  STATE. 


PREFACE. 


TO  THE  MINISTERS  AND  PREACHERS  OF  ALL  DENOMINATIONS 
OF  RELIGION. 


IT  is  the  duty  of  every  man,  as  far  as  his  ability  extends,  to 
detect  and  expose  delusion  and  error.  But  nature  has  not  given 
to  every  one  a  talent  for  the  purpose  ;  and  among  those  to  whom 
such  a  talent  is  given,  there  is  often  a  want  of  disposition  or  of 
courage  to  do  it. 

The  world,  or  more  properly  speaking,  that  small  part  of  it 
called  Christendom,  or  the  Christian  Wo  rid,  has  been  amused  for 
more  than  a  thousand  years  with  accounts  of  Prophecies  in  the 
Old  Testament,  about  the  coming  of  the  person  called  Jesus 
Christ,  and  thousands  of  sermons  have  been  preached,  and  vol- 
umes written,  to  make  man  believe  it. 

In  the  following  treatise  I  have  examined  all  the  passages  in 
the  New  Testament,  quoted  from  the  Old,  and  called  prophecies 
concerning  Jesus  Christ,  and  I  find  no  such  thing  as  a  prophecy 
of  any  such  person,  and  I  deny  there  are  any.  The  passages  all 
relate  to  circumstances  the  Jewish  nation  was  in  at  the  time  they 
were  written  or  spoken,  and  not  to  any  thing  that  was  or  was  not 
to  happen  in  the  world  several  hundred  years  afterwards  ;  and  I 
have  shown  what  the  circumstances  were,  to  which  the  passages 
apply  or  refer.  I  have  given  chapter  and  verse  for  every  thing 
I  have  said,  and  have  not  gone  out  of  the  books  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament  for  evidence  that  the  passages  are  not  prophe- 
cies of  the  person  called  Jesus  Christ, 

The  prejudice  of  unfounded  belief,  often  degenerates  into  the 
prejudice  of  custom,  and  becomes,  at  last,  rank  hypocrisy. — 
When  men,  from  custom  or  fashion,  or  any  worldly  motive,  pro- 
fess or  pretend  to  believe  what  they  do  not  believe,  nor  can  give 
any  reason  for  believing,  they  unship  the  helm  of  their  morality  ; 
and  being  no  longer  honest  to  their  own  minds,  they  feel  no  mo- 
ral difficulty  in  being  unjust  to  others.  It  is  from  the  influence 
of  this  vice,  hypocrisy,  that  we  see  so  many  Church  and  Meet- 
ing-going professors  and  pretenders  to  religion,  so  full  of  trick 
and  deceit  in  their  dealings,  and  so  loose  in  the  performance  of 
their  engagements,  that  they  are  not  to  be  trusted  farther  than 
the  laws  of  the  country  will  bind  them.  Morality  has  no  hold 
on  their  minds,  no  restraint  on  their  actions. 


202  PREFACE. 

One  set  of  preachers  make  salvation  to  consist  in  believing. 
They  tell  their  congregations,  that  if  they  believe  in  Christ,  their 
sins  shall  be  forgiven.  This,  in  the  first  place,  is  an  encourage- 
ment to  sin,  in  a  similar  manner  as  when  a  prodigal  young  fellow 
is  told  his  father  will  pay  all  his  debts,  he  runs  into  debt  the  fast- 
er, and  becomes  the  more  extravagant  :  Daddy,  says  he,  pays  all, 
and  on  he  goes.  Just  so  in  the  other  case,  Christ  pays  oW,  and 
on  goes  the  sinner. 

In  the  next  place,  the  doctrine  these  men  preach  is  not  true. 
The  New  Testament  rests  itself  for  credibility  and  testimony  on 
what  are  called  prophecies  in  the  Old  Testament,  of  the  person 
called  Jesus  Christ ;  and  if  there  are  no  such  thing  as  prophe- 
cies of  any  such  person  in  the  Old  Testament,  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  a  forgery  of  the  councils  of  Nice  and  Laodocia,  and  the 
faith  founded  thereon,  delusion  and  falsehood.* 

Another  set  of  preachers  tell  'their  congregations  that  God 
predestinated  and  selected  from  all  eternity,  a  certain  number  to 
be  saved,  and  a  certain  number  to  be  damned  eternally.  If  this 
were  true,  the  day  of  Judgment  is  PAST  :  their  preaching  is  in  vain, 
and  they  had  better  work  at  some  useful  calling  for  their  liveli- 
hood. 

This  doctrine,  also,  like  the  former,  hath  a  direct  tendency  to 
demoralize  mankind.  Can  a  bad  man  be  reformed  by  telling  him, 
that  if  he  is  one  of  those  who  was  decreed  to  be  damned  before 
he  was  born,  his  reformation  will  do  him  no  good  ;  and  if  he  was 
decreed  to  be  saved,  he  will  be  saved  whether  he;  believes  it  or 
not  ;  for  this  is  the  result  of  the  doctrine.  Such  preaching  and 
such  preachers  do  injury  to  the  moral  world.  They  had  better 
be  at  the  plough. 

As  in  my  political  works  my  motive  and  object  have  been  to 
give  man  an  elevated  sense  of  his  own  character,  and  free  him 
fro"m  the  slavish  and  superstitious  absurdity  of  monarchy  and  he- 
reditary government,  so  in  my  publications  on  religious  subjects 
my  endeavours  have  been  directed  to  bring  man  to  a  right  use  of 
the  reason  that  God  has  given  him  ;  to  impress  on  him  the  great 
principles  of  divine  morality,  justice,  mercy,  and  a  benevolent 
disposition  to  all  men,  and  to  all  creatures,  and  to  inspire  in  him 
a  spirit  of  trust,  confidence  and  consolation  in  his  Creator,  un- 
shackled by  the  fables  of  books  pretending  to  be  the  word  of  God. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 

*  The  councils  of  Nice  and  Laodocia  were  held  about  350  years  after  the  time 
Christ  is  said  to  have  lived  ;  and  the  books  that  now  compose  the  New  Testament, 
were  then  voted  for  by  YEAS  and  NAYS,  as  we  now  vote  a  law.  A  great  many  that 
were  offered  had  a  majority  of  nays,  and  were  rejected.  This  is  the  way  the  New 
Testament  came  into  being. 


AJV  ESSAY  OJV  DREAM. 


AS  a  great  deal  is  said  in  the  New  Testament  about  dreams,  it 
is  first  necessary  to  explain  the  nature  of  dream,  and  to  show  by 
what  operation  of  the  mind  a  dream  is  produced  during  sleep. 
When  this  is  understood  we  shall  be  the  better  enabled  to  judge 
whether  any  reliance  can  be  placed  upon  them;  and  consequently, 
whether  the  several  matters  in  the  New  Testament  related  of 
dreams  deserve  the  credit  which  the  writers  of  that  book  and 
priests  and  commentators  ascribe  to  them. 

In  order  to  understand  the  nature  of  dreams,  or  of  that  which 
passes  in  ideal  vision  during  a  state  of  sleep,  it  is  first  necessary 
to  understand  the  composition  and  decomposition  of  the  human 
mind. 

The  three  great  faculties  of  the  mind  are  IMAGINATION,  JUDG- 
MENT, and  MEMORY.  Every  action  of  the  mind  comes  under  one 
or  other  of  these  faculties.  In  a  state  of  wakefulness,  as  in  the 
day-time,  these  three  faculties  are  all  active  ;  but  that  is  seldom 
the  case  in  sleep,  and  never  perfectly;  and  this  is  the  cause  that 
our  dreams  are  not  so  regular  and  rational  as  our  waking 
thoughts. 

The  seat  of  that  collection  of  powers  or  faculties,  that  consti- 
tute what  is  called  the  mind,  is  in  the  brain.  There  is  not,  and 
cannot  be,  any  visible  demonstration  of  this  anatomically,  but  ac- 
cidents happening  to  living  persons,  show  it  to  be  so.  An  injury 
done  to  the  brain  by  a  fracture  of  the  skull  will  sometimes  change 
a  wise  man  into  a  childish  idiot ;  a  being  without  mind.  But  so 
careful  has  nature  been  of  that  sanctum  sanctorum  of  man,  the 
brain,  that  of  all  the  external  accidents  to  which  humanity  is  sub- 
ject, this  happens  the  most  seldom.  But  we  often  see  it  happen- 
ing by  long  and  habitual  intemperance. 

Whether  those  three  faculties  occupy  distinct  apartments  of  the 
brain,  is  known  only  to  that  Almighty  power  that  formed  and 
organized  it.  We  can  see  the  external  eiTects  of  muscular  mo- 
tion in  all  the  members  of  the  body,  though  its  primum  mobile,  or 
first  moving  cause,  is  unknown  to  man.  Our  external  motions 
are  sometimes  the  effect  of  intention,  and  sometimes  not. '  If  we 
are  sitting  and  intend  to  rise,  or  standing  and  intend  to  sit,  or  to 
walk,  the  limbs  obey  that  intention  as  if  they  heard  the  order 
given.  But  we  make  a  thousand  motions  every  day,  and  that  as 
well  waking  as  sleeping,  that  have  no  prior  intention  to  direct* 


204  AN    ESSAY   ON   DREAM. 

them.  Each  member  acts  as  if  it  had  a  will  or  mind  of  its  own. 
Man  governs  the  whole  when  he  pleases  to  govern,  but  in  the 
interims  the  several  parts,  like  little  suburbs,  govern  themselves 
without  consulting  the  sovereign. 

But  all  these  motions,  whatever  be  the  generating  cause,  are 
external  and  visible.  But  with  respect  to  the  brain,  no  ocular 
observation  can  be  made  upon  it.  All  is  mystery  ;  all  is  darkness 
in  that  womb  of  thought. 

Whether  the  brain  is  a  mass  of  matter  in  continual  rest  ;  whe- 
ther it  has  a  vibrating  pulsative  motion,  or  a  heaving  and  falling 
motion,  like  matter  in  fermentation ;  whether  different  parts  of 
the  brain  have  different  motions  according  to  the  faculty  that  is 
employed,  be  it  the  imagination,  the  judgment,  or  the  memory, 
man  knows  nothing  of  it.  He  knows  not  the  cause  of  his  own 
wit.  His  own  brain  conceals  it  from  him. 

Comparing  invisible  by  visible  things,  as  metaphysical  can 
sometimes  be  compared  to  physical  things,  the  operations  of  those 
distinct  and  several  faculties  have  some  resemblance  to  the  me- 
chanism of  a  watch.  The  main  spring  which  puts  all  in  motion, 
corresponds  to  the  imagination  ;  the  pendulum  or  balance,  which 
corrects  and  regulates  that  motion,  corresponds  to  the  judgment ; 
and  the  hand  and  dial,  like  the  memory,  record  the  operations. 

Now  in  proportion  as  these  several  faculties  sleep,  slumber,  or 
keep  awake,  during  the  continuance  of  a  dream,  in  that  propor- 
tion the  dream  will  be  reasonable  or  frantic,  remembered  or  for- 
gotten. 

If  there  is  any  faculty  in  mental  man  that  never  sleeps,  it  is 
that  volatile  thing  the  imagination:  the  case  is  different  with  the 
judgment  and  memory.  The  sedate  and  sober  constitution  of 
the  judgment  easily  disposes  it  to  rest  ;  and  as  to  the  memory, 
it  records  in  silence,  and  is  active  only  when  it  is  called  upon. 

That  the  judgment  soon  goes  to  sleep  may  be  perceived  by  our 
sometimes  beginning  to  dream  before  we  are  fully  asleep  our- 
selves. Some  random  thought  rims  in  the  mind,  and  we  start,  as 
it  were,  into  recollection  that  we  are  dreaming  between  sleeping 
and  waking. 

If  the  judgment  sleeps  whilst  the  imagination  keeps  awake,  the 
dream  will  be  a  riotous  assemblage  of  mis-shapen  images  and 
ranting  ideas,  and  the  more  active  the  imagination  is,  the  wilder 
the  dream  will  be.  The  most  inconsistent  and  the  most  impossi- 
ble things  will  appear  right ;  because  that  faculty,  whose  prov- 
ince it  is  to  keep  order,  is  in  a  state  of  absence.  The  master  of 
the  school  is  gone  out,  and  the  boys  are  in  an  uproar. 

If  the  memory  sleeps,  we  shall  have  no  other  knowledge  of  the 
dream  than  that  we  have  dreamt,  without  knowing  what  it  was 
about.  In  this  case  it  is  sensation,  rather  than  recollection,  that 
acts.  The  dream  has  given  us  some  sense  of  pain  or  trouble,  and 
we  feel  it  as  a  hurt,  rather  than  remember  it  as  a  vision. 


AN    ESSAY   ON   DREAM.  205 

If  memory  only  slumbers,  we  shall  have  a  faint  remembrance 
of  the  dream,  and  after  a  few  minutes  it  will  sometimes  happen 
that  the  principal  passages  of  the  dream  will  occur  to  us  more 
fully.  The  cause  of  this  is,  that  the  memory  will  sometimes 
continue  slumbering  or  sleeping  after  we  are  awake  ourselves, 
and  that  so  fully,  that  it  may,  and  sometimes  does  happen, 
that  we  do  not  immediately  recollect  where  we  are,  nor  what  we 
have  been  about,  or  have  to  do.  But  when  the  memory  starts 
into  wakefulness,  it  brings  the  knowledge  of  these  things  back 
upon  us,  like  a  flood  of  light,  and  sometimes  the  dream  with  it. 

But  the  most  curious  circumstance  of  the  mind  in  a  state  of 
dream,  is  the  power  it  has  to  become  the  agent  of  every  person, 
character  and  thing,  of  which  it  dreams.  It  carries  on  conver- 
sation with  several,  asks  questions,  hears  answers,  gives  and  re- 
ceives information,  and  it  acts  all  these  parts  itself. 

But  however  various  and  eccentric  the  imagination  may  be  in 
the  creation  of  images  and  ideas,  it  cannot  supply  the  place  of 
memory,  with  respect  to  things  that  are  forgotten  when  we  are 
awake.  For  example,  if  we  have  forgotten  the  name  of  a  per 
son,  and  dream  of  seeing  him  and  asking  him  his  name,  he  can- 
not tell  it ;  for  it  is  ourselves  asking  ourselves  the  question. 

But  though  the  imagination  eannot  supply  the  place  of  real 
memory,  it  has  the  wild  faculty  of  counterfeiting  memory.  It 
dreams  of  persons  it  never  knew,  and  talks  with  them  as  if  it  re- 
membered them  as  old  acquaintances.  It  relates  circumstances 
that  never  happened,  and  tells  them  as  if  they  had  happened.  It 
goes  to  places  that  never  existed,  and  knows  where  all  the  streets 
and  houses  are,  as  if  it  had  been  there  before.  The  scenes  it  cre- 
ates often  appear  as  scenes  remembered.  It  will  sometimes  act 
a  dream  within  a  dream,  and,  in  the  delusion  of  dreaming,  tell  a 
dream  it  never  dreamed,  and  tell  it  as  if  it  was  from  memory.  It 
may  also  be  remarked,  that  the  imagination  in  a  dream,  has  no 
idea  of  time,  as  time.  It  counts  only  by  circumstances  ;  and  if  a 
succession  of  circumstances  pass  in  a  dream  that  would  require 
a  great  length  of  time  to  accomplish  them,  it  will  appear  to  the 
dreamer  that  a  length  of  time  equal  thereto  has  passed  also. 

As  this  is  the  state  of  the  mind  in  dream,  it  may  rationally  be 
said  that  every  person  is  mad  once  in  twenty-four  hours,  for  were 
he  to  act  in  the  day  as  he  dreams  in  the  night,  he  would  be  con- 
fined for  a  lunatic.  In  a  state  of  wakefulness,  those  three  facul- 
ties being  all  alive,  and  acting  in  union,  constitute  the  rational 
man.  In  dreams  it  is  otherwise,  and  therefore  that  state  which 
is  called  insanity,  appears  to  be  no  other  than  a  disunion  of  those 
faculties,  and  a  cessation  of  the  judgment,  during  wakefulness, 
that  we  so  often  ^Jberience  during  sleep ;  and  idiocity,  into 
which  some  persons iriave  fallen,  is  that  cessation  of  all  the  facul- 
ties of  which  we  can  be  sensible,  when  we  happen  to  wake  before 
our  memory. 

18 


206  AN    ESSAY   ON   DREAM. 

In  this  view  of  the  mind,  how  absurd  is  it  to  place  reliance 
upon  dreams,  and  how  much  more  absurd  to  make  them  a  foun- 
dation for  religion  ;  yet  the  belief  that  Jesus  Christ  is  the  Son 
of  God,  begotten  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  a  being  never  heard  of  be- 
fore, stands  on  the  story  of  an  old  man's  dream.  "  And  behold 
the  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  to  Joseph  in  a  dream,  saying,  Joseph, 
thou  son  of  David,  fear  not  thou  to  take  unto  thee  Mary  thy  wife 
for  that  which  is  conceived  in  her  is  of  the  Holy  Ghost." — Matt, 
ch.  i.  ver.  20. 

After  this  we  have  the  childish  stories  of  three  or  four  other 
dreams  ;  about  Joseph  going  into  Egypt ;  about  his  coming  back 
again  ;  about  this,  and  abou  chat,  and  this  story  of  dreams  has 
thrown  Europe  into  a  dream  for  more  than  a  thousand  years.  All 
the  efforts  that  nature,  reason,  and  conscience  have  made  to 
awaken  man  from  it,  have  been  ascribed  by  priestcraft  and  su- 
perstition to  the  workings  of  the  devil,  and  had  it  not  been  for  the 
American  revolution,  which  by  establishing-  the  universal  right  of 
conscience,  first  opened  the  way  to  free  discussion,  and  for  the 
French  revolution  which  followed,  this  religion  of  dreams  had 
continued  to  be  preached,  and  that  after  it  had  ceased  to  be  be- 
lieved. Those  who  preached  it  and  did  not  believe  it,  still  be- 
lieved the  delusion  necessary.  They  were  not  bold  enough  to 
be  honest,  nor  honest  enough  to  be  bold. 

[Every  new  religion,  like  a  new  play,  requires  a  new  appara- 
tus of  dresses  and  machinery,  to  fit  the  new  characters  it  creates. 
The  story  of  Christ  in  the  New  Testament  brings  a  new  being 
upon  the  stage,  which  it  calls  the  Holy  Ghost  ;  and  the  story  of 
Abraham,  the  father  of  the  Jews,  in  the  Old  Testament,  gives 
existence  to  a  new  order  of  beings  it  calls  Angels. — There  was 
no  Holy  Ghost  before  the  time  of  Christ,  nor  Angels  before  the 
time  of  Abraham. — We  hear  nothing  of  these  winged  gentlemen, 
till  more  than  two  thousand  years,  according  to  the  Bible  chron- 
ology, from  the  time  they  say  the  heavens,  the  earth,  and  all 
therein  were  made  : — After  this,  they  hop  about  as  thick  as  birds 
in  a  grove  : — The  first  we  hear  of  pays  his  addresses  to  Hagar 
in  the  wilderness  ;  then  three  of  them  visit  Sarah  ;  another  wres- 
tles a  fall  with  Jacob  ;  and  these  birds  of  passage  having  found 
their  way  to  earth  and  back,  are  continually  coming  and  going. 
They  eat  and  drink,  and  up  again  to  heaven. — What  they  do 
with  the  food  they  carry  away,  the  Bible  does  not  tell  us. — Per- 
haps they  do  as  the  birds  do.  *  *  * 

One  would  think  that  a  system  loaded  with  such  gross  and  vul- 
gar absurdities  as  scripture  religion  is,  could  never  have  obtained 
credit  ;  yet  we  have  seen  what  priestcraft  and  fanaticism  could 
do,  and  credulity  believe.  ^ 

From  angels  in  the  Old  Testament,  we^et  to  prophets,  to 
witches,  to  seers  of  visions,  and  dreamers  of  dreams,  and  some- 
times we  are  told,  as  in  2  Sam,  chap.  ix.  ver.  15,  that  God  whis- 


AN   ESSAY   ON    DREAM.  207 

pers  in  the  ear — At  other  times  we  are  not  told  how  the  impulse 
was  given,  or  whether  sleeping  or  waking — In  2  Sam.  chap.  xxiv. 
ver.  1,  it  is  said,  "  And  again  the  anger  of  the  Lord  was  kindled 
against  Israel,  and  he  moved  David  against  them  to  say,  go  number 
Israel  and  Judah." — And  in  1  Chro.  chap.  xxi.  ver.  1,  when  the 
same  story  is  again  related,  it  is  said, c  and  Satan  stood  up  against 
Israel,  and  moved  David  to  number  Israel." 

Whether  this  was  done  sleeping  or  waking,  we  are  not  told, 
but  it  seems  that  David,  whom  they  call  aa  man  after  God's  own 
heart,"  did  not  know  by  what  spirit  he  was  moved  ;  and  as  to 
the  men  called  inspired  penmen,  they  agree  so  well  about  the 
matter,  that  in  one  book  they  say  that  it  was  God,  and  in  the 
other  that  it  was  the  Devil. 

The  idea  that  writers  of  the  Old  Testament  had  of  a  God  was 
boisterous,  contemptible  and  vulgar. — They  make  him  the  Mars 
of  the  Jews,  the  fighting  God  of  Israel,  the  conjuring^  God  of 
their  Priests  and  Prophets. — They  tell  as  many  fables  of  him  as 
the  Greeks  told  of  Hercules.  *  * 

They  make  their  God  to  say  exultingly,  "  J  will  get  me  honour 
upon  Pharaoh,  and  upon  his  Host,  upon  his  Chariots  and  upon  his 
Horsemen." — And  that  he  may  keep  his  word,  they  make  him  set 
a  trap  in  the  Red  Sea,  in  the  dead  of  the  night,  for  Pharaoh,  his 
host,  and  his  horses,  and  drown  them  as  a  rat-catcher  would  do 
so  many  rats — Great  honour  indeed!  the  story  of  Jack  the  Giant- 
killer  is  better  told  ! 

They  pit  him  against  the  Egyptian  magicians  to  conjure  with 
him  ;  the  three  first  essays  are  a  dead  match — Each  party  turns 
his  rod  into  a  serpent,  the  rivers  into  blood,  and  creates  frogs;  but 
upon  the  fourth,  the  God  of  the  Israelits  obtains  the  laurel,  he 
covers  them  all  over  with  lice! — The  Egyptian  magicians  cannot 
do  the  same,  and  this  lousy  triumph  proclaims  the  victory  ! 

They  make  their  God  to  rain  fire  and  brimstone  upon  Sodom 
and  Gomorrah,  and  belch  fire  and  smoke  upon  mount  Sinai,  as 
if  he  was  the  Pluto  of  the  lower  regions.  They  make  him  salt 
up  Lot's  wife  like  pickled  pork  ;  they  make  him  pass  like  Shak- 
speare's  Queen  Mab  into  the  brain  of  their  priests,  prophets,  and 
propheteses,  and  tickle  them  into  dreams,  and  after  making  him 
play  all  kind  of  tricks,  they  confound  him  with  Satan,  and  leave 
us  at  a  loss  to  know  what  God  they  meant  ! 

This  is  the  descriptive  God  of  the  Old  Testament  ;  and  as  to 
the  New,  though  the  authors  of  it  have  varied  the  scene,  they 
have%  continued  the  vulgarity. 

Is  man  ever  to  be  the  dupe  of  priestcraft,  the  slave  of  supersti- 
tion? Is  he  never  to  have  just  ideas  of  his  Creator?  It  is  better 
not  to  believe  tl^fce  is  a  God,  than  to  believe  of  him  falsely. 
When  we  behold  me  mighty  universe  that  surrounds  us,  and  dart 
our  contemplation  into  the  eternity  of  space,  filled  with  innumer- 
able orbs,  revolving  in  eternal  harmony,  how  paltry  must  the 


208  AN    ESSAY   ON    DREAM. 

tales  of  the  Old  and  New  Testaments,  profanely  called  the  word 
of  God,  appear  to  thoughtful  man  !  The  stupendous  wisdom, 
and  unerring  order,  that  reign  and  govern  throughout  this  won- 
drous whole,  and  call  us  to  reflection,  put  to  shame  the  Bible  ! — 
The  God  of  eternity,  and  of  all  that  is  real,  is  not  the  God  of  pass- 
ing dreams,  and  shadows  of  man's  imagination  !  The  God  of 
truth,  is  not  the  God  of  fable  ;  the  belief  of  a  God  begotten  and 

a  God  crucified,  is  a  God  blasphemed It  is  making  a  profane 

use  of  reason.]* 

I  shall  conclude  this  Essay  on  Dream  with  the  two  first  yerses 
of  the  34th  chapter  of  Ecclesiasticus,  one  of  the  books  of  th« 
Apocrypha. 

"  The  hopes  of  a  man  void  of  understanding  are  vain  and  false  • 
and  dreams  lift  up  fools — WJioso  regardeth  dreams  is  like  him  that 
catcheth  at  a  shadow,  and  followeth  after  the  ivind." 

I  now  proceed  to  an  examination  of  the  passages  in  the  Bible, 
called  prophecies  of  the  coming  of  Christ,  and  to  show  there  are 
no  prophecies  of  any  such  person.  That  the  passages  clandes- 
tinely styled  prophecies  are  not  prophecies,  and  that  they  refer 
to  circumstances  the  Jewish  nation  was  in  at  the  time  they  were 
written  or  spoken,  and  not  to  any  distance  of  future  time  or  per- 
son. 

*  Mr.  Paine  must  have  been  in  an  ill  humour  when  he  wrote  the  passage  inclosed  in 
crotchets ;  and  probably  on  reviewing  it,  and  discovering  exceptionable  clauses,  waa 
induced  to  reject  the  whole,  as  it  does  not  appear  in  the  edition  published  by  himself. 
But  having  obtained  the  original  in  the  hand  writing  of  Mr.  P.  and  deeming  some  of 
the  remarks  worthy  of  bei  ng  preserved,  I  have  thought  proper  to  restore  the  passage, 
with  the  exception  of  the  objectionable  parts. — EDITOR. 


AN 

EXAMINATION 

OF   THE 

PASSAGES  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT, 

QUOTED  FROM  THE  OLD,  AND  CALLED  PROPHECIES  OF  THE  COMING  OF 

JESUS  CHRIST. 


[THIS  work  was  first  published  by  Mr.  Paine,  at  New-York,  in 
1807,  and  was  the  last  of  his  writings  edited  by  himself.  It  is 
evidently  extracted  from  his  answer  to  the  bishop  of  Llandaff,  or 
from  his  third  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  both  of  which,  it  ap- 
pears by  his  will,  he  left  in  manuscript.  The  term,  "  The  Bish- 
op," occurs  in  this  examination  six  times  without  designating  what 
bishop  is  meant.  Of  all  the  replies  to  his  second  part  of  the  Age 
of  Reason,  that  of  bishop  Watson  was  the  only  one  to  which  he 
paid  particular  attention  ;  and  he  is,  no  doubt,  the  person  here 
alluded  to.  Bishop  Watson's  apology  for  the  Bible  had  been 
published  some  years  before  Mr.  P.  left  France,  and  the  latter 
composed  his  answer  to  it,  and  also  his  third  part  of  the  Age  of 
Reason,  while  in  that  country. 

When  Mr.  Paine  arrived  in  America,  and  found  that  liberal 
opinions  on  religion  were  in  disrepute,  through  the  influence  of 
hypocrisy  and  superstition,  he  declined  publishing  the  entire  of 
the  works  which  he  had  prepared  ;  observing  that  "  an  author 
might  lose  the  credit  he  had  acquired  by  writing  too  much."  He 
however  gave  to  the  public  the  examination  before  us,  in  a  pam- 
phlet form.  But  the  apathy  whicn  appeared  to  prevail  at  that 
time  in  regard  to  religious  inquiry,  fully  determined  him  to  dis- 
continue the  publication  of  his  theological  writings.  In  this  case, 
taking  only  a  portion  of  one  of  the  works  before  mentioned,  he 
chose  a  title  adapted  to  the  particular  part  selected.] 

THE  passages  called  Prophecies  of,  or  concerning  Jesus  Christ, 
in  the  old  Testament,  may  be  classed  under  the  two  following 
heads  : — 

First,  those  referred  to  in  the  four  books  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment, called  the  four  Evangelists,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and 
John. 

Secondly,  those  which  translators  and  commentators  have,  of 
18* 


210  EXAMINATION   OF 

their  own  imagination,  erected  into  prophecies,  and  dubbed  with 
that  title  at  the  head  of  the  several  chapters  of  the  Old  Testa- 
ment. Of  these  it  is  scarcely  worth  while  to  waste  time,  ink, 
and  paper  upon  ;  I  shall  therefore  confine  myself  chiefly  to  those 
referred  to  in  the  aforesaid  four  books  of  the  New  Testament. 
If  I  show  that  these  are  not  prophecies  of  the  person  called  Je- 
sus Christ,  nor  have  reference  to  any  such  person,  it  will  be  per- 
fectly needless  to  combat  those  which  translators  or  the  Church 
have  invented,  and  for  which  they  had  no  other  authority  than 
their  own  imagination. 

I  begin  with  the  book  called  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Mat- 
thew. 

In  the  first  chap.  ver.  18,  it  is  said,  "  Now  the  birth  of  Jesus 
Christ  was  on  this  wise  ;  when  his  mother  Mary  icas  espoused  to  Jo- 
seph, before  they  came  together,  SHE  WAS  FOUND  WITH  CHILD  BY 
THE  HOLY  GHOST." — This  is  going  a  little  too  fast  ;  because  to 
make  this, verse  agree  with  the  next  it  should  have  said  no  more 
than  that  she  was  found  with  child;  for  the  next  verse  says,  "  Then 
Joseph  her  husband  being  a  just  man,  and  not  willing  to  make  her  a 
public  example,  was  minded  to  put  her  away  privily." — Consequent- 
ly Joseph  had  found  out  no  more  than  that  she  was  with  child, 
and  he  knew  it  was  not  by  himself. 

V.  20.  "  And  whik  he  thought  of  these  things  (that  is,  whether 
he  should  put  her  away  privily,  or  make  a  public  example  of  her,) 
behold  the  Angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  to  him  IN  A  DREAM  (that  is, 
Joseph  dreamed  that  an  angel  appeared  unto  him)  saying,  Joseph, 
thou  son  of  David,  fear  not  to  take  unto  thee  Mary  thy  wife,  far  that 
which  is  conceived  in  her  is  of  tlie  Holy  Ghost.  Jfad  she  shall  bring 
forth  a  son,  and  thou  shall  call  his  name  Jesus  ;  for  he  shall  save 
his  people  from  their  sins." 

Now,  without  entering  into  any  discussion  upon  the  merits  or 
demerits  of  the  account  here  given,  it  is  proper  to  observe,  that 
it  has  no  higher  authority  than  that  of  a  dream  ;  for  it  is  impos- 
sible for  a  man  to  behold  any  thing  in  a  dream,  but  that  which  he 
dreams  of.  I  ask  not,  therefore,  whether  Joseph  (if  there  was 
such  a  man)  had  such  a  dream  or  not;  because,  admitting  he  had, 
it  proves  nothing.  So  wonderful  and  rational  is  the  faculty  of 
the  mind  in  dreams,  that  it  acts  the  part  of  all  the  characters  its 
imagination  creates,  and  what  it  thinks  it  hears  from  any  of  them, 
is  no  other  than  what  the  roving  rapidity  of  its  own  imagination 
invents.  It  is  therefore  nothing  to  me  what  Joseph  dreamed  of ; 
whether  of  the  fidelity  or  infidelity  of  his  wife. — I  pay  no  regard 
to  my  own  dreams,  and  I  should  be  weak  indeed  to  put  faith  in 
the  dreams  of  another. 

The  verses  that  follow  those  I  have  quoted,  are  the  words  of  the 
writer  of  the  book  of  Matthew.  "  Now  (says  he)  all  this  (that 
is,  all  this  dreaming  and  this  pregnancy)  was  done  tfmt  it  might 
be  fulfilled  which  ivas  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  Prophet,  saying, 


THE   PROPHECIES.  211 

"  Behold  a  virgin  shall  be  ivith  child,  and  shall  bring  forth  a  son, 
and  they  shall  call  his  name  Emmanuel,  which  being  interpreted,  is9 
God  with  us." 

This  passage  is  in  Isaiah,  chap.  vii.  ver.  14,  and  the  writer  of 
the  book  of  Matthew  endeavours  to  make  his  readers  believe  that 
this  passage  is  a  prophecy  of  the  person  called  Jesus  Christ.  It 
is  no  such  thing — and  I  go  to  show  it  is  not.  But  it  is  first  ne- 
cessary that  I  explain  the  occasion  of  these  words  being  spoken 
by  Isaiah  ;  the  reader  will  then  easily  perceive,  that  so  far  from 
their  being  a  prophecy  of  Jesus  Christ,  they  have  not  the  least 
reference  to  such  a  person,  or  any  thing  that  could  happen  in  the 
time  that  Christ  is  said  to  have  lived — which  was  about  seven 
hundred  years  after  the  time  of  Isaiah.  The  case  is  this  : 

On  the  death  of  Solomon  the  Jewish  nation  split  into  two  mon- 
archies ;  one  called  the  kingdom  of  Judah,  the  capital  of  which 
was  Jerusalem  ;  the  other  the  kingdom  of  Israel,  the  capital  of 
which  was  Samaria.  The  kingdom  of  Judah  followed  the  line 
of  David,  and  the  kingdom  of  Israel  that  of  Saul  ;  and  these  two 
rival  monarchies  frequently  carried  on  fierce  wars  against  each 
other. 

At  the  time  Ahaz  was  king-  of  Judah,  which  was  in  the  time  of 
Isaiah,  Pekah  was  king  of  Israel  :  and  Pekah  joined  himself  to 
Rezin,  king  of  Syria,  to  make  war  against  Ahaz,  king  of  Judah  ; 
and  these  two  kings  marched  a  confederated  and  powerful  army 
against  Jerusalem.  Ahaz  and  his  people  became  alarmed  at  the 
danger,  and  ii  their  hearts  were  moved  as  the  trees  of  the  wood  are 
moved  iviththe  wind."  Isaiah,  chap.  vii.  ver.  3. 

In  this  perilous  situation  of  things,  Isaiah  addressed  himself  to 
Ahaz,  and  assures  him,  in  the  name  of  the  Lord  (the  cant  phrase 
of  all  the  prophets)  that  these  two  kings  should  not  succeed 
against  him  ;  and  to  assure  him  that  this  should  be  the  case  (the 
case  was  however  directly  contrary*)  tells  Ahaz  to  ask  a  sign  of 
the  Lord.  This  Ahaz  declined  doing,  giving  as  a  reason,  that 
he  would  not  tempt  the  Lord  :  upon  which  Isaiah,  who  pretends 
to  be  sent  from  God,  says,  ver.  14,  " Therefore  the  Lord  himself 
shall  give  you  a  sign,  behold  a  virgin  shall  conceive  and  bear  a  son 
— Butter  and  honey  shall  he  eat,  that  he  may  know  to  refuse  the 
evil  and  choose  the  good — For  before  the  child  shall  know  to  re- 
fuse the  evil  and  choose  the  good,  the  land  which  thou  abhorrest 
shall  be  forsBken  of  both  her  kings" — meaning  the  king  of  Is- 
rael and  the  king  of  Syria,  who  were  marching  against  him. 

*  Ckron.  chap,  xxviii.  ver.  1st.  Ahaz  was  twenty  years  old  when  he  began  to 
reign,  and  he  reigned  sixteen  years  in  Jerusalem,  but  he  did  not  that  which  was  right 
in  the  sight  of  the  Lord. —  Per.  5.  Wherefore  the  Lord  his  God  delivered  him  into 
the  hand  of  the  king  of  Syna,  and  they  smote  him,  and  carried  away  a  great  multi- 
tude of  them  captive  and  brought  them  to  Damascus  :  and  he  was  also  delivered  into 
the  hand  of  the  king  of  Israel,  who  smote  him  with  a  great  slaughter. 

Ver.  6.  And  Pekah  (king  of  Israel)  slew  in  Judah  an  hundred  and  twenty  thou- 
sand in  one  day. —  Ver.  8.  And  the  children  of  Israel  carried  away  captive  of  their 
brethren  two  hundred  thousand  women,  sons  and  daughters 


212  EXAMINATION    OF 

Here  then  is  the  sign,  which  was  to  be  the  birth  of  a  chil(37 
and  that  child  a  son  ;  and  here  also  is  the  time  limited  for  the  ac- 
complishment of  the  sign,  namely,  before  the  child  should  know 
to  refuse  the  evil  and  choose  the  good. 

The  thing,  therefore,  to  be  a  sign  of  success  to  Ahaz  must  be 
something  that  would  take  place  before  the  event  of  the  battle 
then  pending  between  him  and  the  two  kings  could  be  known.  A 
thing  to  be  u  sign  must  precede  the  thing  signified.  The  sign  of 
rain  must  be  before  the  rain. 

It  would  have  been  mockery  and  insulting  nonsense  for  Isaiah 
to  have  assured  Ahaz  as  a  sign  that  these  two  Kings  should  not 
prevail  against  him  ;  that  a  child  should  be  born  seven  hundred 
years  after  he  was  dead  ;  and  that  before  the  child  so  born 
should  know  to  refuse  the  evil  and  choose  the  go  d,  he,  Ahazr 
should  be  delivered  from  the  danger  he  wis  then  immediately 
threatened  with. 

But  the  ease  is,  that  the  child  of  which  Isaiah  speaks  was  his 
own  child,  with  which  his  wife  or  his  mistress  was  then  pregnant  ; 
for  he  says  in  the  next  chapter,  v.  2,  "rfnd  I  took  unto  me  faithful 
witnesses  to  record,  Uriah  the  priest,  and  Zechariah  the  son  of  Jeb- 
erechiah  ;  and  I  went  unto  the  prophetess,  and  she  conceived  and 
bear  a  son  :"  and  he  says  at  ver.  18  of  the  same  chapter,  "  Be- 
hold 1  and  the  children  whom  the  Lord  hath  given  me  are  for  signs 
and  for  wonders  in  Israel." 

It  may  not  be  improper  here  to  observe,  that  the  word  trans- 
lated a  virgin  in  Isaiah,  does  not  signify  a  virgin  in  Hebrew,  hut 
merely  a  young  woman.  The  tense  also  is  falsified  in  the  trans- 
lation. Levi  gives  the  Hebrew  text  of  the  14th  ver.  of  the  7th 
chap,  of  Isaiah,  and  the  translation  in.  English  with  it — <'  Behold 
a  young  woman  is  with  child  and  beareth  a  son."  The  expression, 
says  he,  is  in  the  present  tense.  This  translation  agrees  with  the 
other  circumstances  related  of  the  birth  of  this  child,  which  was 
to  be  a  sign  to  Ahaz.  But  as  the  true  translation  could  not  have 
been  imposed  upon  the  world  as  a  prophecy  of  a  child  to  be  born 
seven  hundred  years  afterwards,  the  Christian  translators  have 
falsified  the  original  ;  and  instead  of  making  Isaiah  to  say,  be- 
hold a  young  woman  is  with  child  and  beareth  a  son — they  make 
him  to  say,  behold  a  virgin  sfiall  conceive  and  bear  a  son.  It  is, 
however  only  necessary  for  a  person  to  read  the  7th  and  8th 
chapters  of  Isaiah,  and  he  will  be  convinced  that  the  passage  in 
question  is  no  prophecy  of  the  person  called  Jesus  Christ.  I 
pass  on  to  the  second  passage  quoted  from  the  Old  Testament  by 
the  New,  as  a  prophecy  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Matthew,  chap.  ii.  ver.  1.  "Now  when  Jesus  was  born  in 
Bethlehem  of  Judah,  in  the  days  of  Herod  the  king,  behold  there 
came  wise  men  from  the  east  to  Jerusalem — saying,  where  is  he 
that  is  born  king  of  the  Jews  ?  for  we  have  seen  his  star  in  the 
east,  and  are  come  to  worship  him.  When  Herod,  the  king, 


THE    PROPHECIES.  213 

heard  these  things,  he  was  troubled,  and  all  Jerusalem  with  him 
— and  when  he  had  gathered  all  the  chief  priests  and  scribes  of 
the  people  together,  he  demanded  of  them  where  Christ  should 
be  born — and  they  said  unto  him,  in  Bethlehem,  in  the  land  of 
Judea  ;  for  thus  it  is  written  by  the  prophet — and  thou  Bethlehem, 
in  the  land  of  Judea,  art  thou  not  the  least  among  the  Princes  ofJu~ 
deajfor  oid  ofthee  shall  come  a  Governor  that  shall  rule  my  peofde 
Israel."  This  passage  is  in  Micah,  ch&p.  v.  ver.  2. 

I  pass  over  the  absurdity  of  seeing  and  following  a  star  in  the 
.day-time,  as  a  man  would  a  Will  with  the  wisp,  or  a  candle  andlan- 
tern  at  night ;  and  also  that  of  seeing  itfin  the  east,  when  them- 
selves came  from  the  east ;  for  could  such  a  thing  be  seen  at  all 
to  serve  them  for  a  guide,  it  must  be  in  the  west  to  them.  I 
confine  myself  solely  to  the  passage  called  a  prophecy  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

The  book  of  Micah,  in  the  passage  above  quoted,  chap.  v.  vei 
2,  is  speaking  of  some  person  without  mentioning  his  name, 
from  whom  some  great  achievements  were  expected  ;  but  the  de- 
scription he  gives  of  this  person  at  the  5th  verse,  proves  evident- 
ly that  it  is  not  Jesus  Christ,  for  he  says  at  the  oth  ver.  "  and  this 
man  shall  be  the  peace  when  the  Assyrian  shall  come  into  our 
land,  and  when  he  shall  tread  in  our  palaces,  then  shall  we  raise 
up  against  him  (that  is,  against  the  Assyrians)  seven  shepherds 
and  eight  principal  men — v.  6.  And  they  shall  waste  the  land 
of  Assyria  with  the  sword,  and  the  land  of  Nimrod  on  the  en- 
trance thereof ;  thus  shall  He  (the  person  spoken  of  at  the  head 
of  the  second  verse)  deliver  us  from  the  Assyrian  when  he  com- 
eth  into  our  land,  and  when  he  treadeth  within  our  borders." 

This  is  so  evidently  descriptive  of  a  military  chief,  that  it  can- 
not be  applied  to  Christ  without  outraging  the  character  they 
pretend  to  give  us  of  him.  Besides  which,  the  circumstances 
of  the  times  here  spoken  of,  and  those  of  the  times  in  which 
Christ  is  said  to  have  lived,  are  in  contradiction  to  each  other. 
It  was  the  Romans,  and  not  the  Assyrians,  that  had  conquered 
and  were  in  the  land  of  Judea,  and  trod  in  their  palaces  when 
Christ  was  born,  and  when  he  died,  and  so  far  from  his  driving 
them  out,  it  was  they  who  signed  the  warrant  for  his  execution, 
and  he  suffered  under  it. 

Having  thus  shown  that  this  is  no  prophecy  of  Jesus  Christ,  I 
pass  on  to  the  third  passage  quoted  from  the  Old  Testament  by 
the  New,  as  a  prophecy  of  him. 

This,  like  the  first  I  have  spoken  of,  is  introduced  by  a  dream. 
Joseph  dreameth  another  dream,  and  dreameth  that  he  seeth 
another  angel.  The  account  begins  at  the  13th  ver.  of  2d  chap, 
of  Matthew. 

"  The  angel  of  the  Lord  appeared  to  Joseph  in  a  dream,  say- 
ing, Arise,  and  take  the  young  child  and  his  mother  and  flee  in- 
to Egypt,  and  be  thou  there  until  I  bring  thee  word  :  For  Herod 


214  EXAMINATION    OF 

will  seek  the  life  of  the  young  child  to  destroy  him.  When  he 
arose  he  took  the  young  child  and  his  mother  by  night  and  de- 
parted into  Egypt — and  was  there  until  the  death  of  Herod,  that 
it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  of  the  Lord  by  the  proph- 
et, saying,  "  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  son." 

This  passage  is  in  the  book  of  Hosea,  chap.  xi.  ver.  1.  The 
words  are,  "  When  Israel  was  a  child  then  I  loved  him  and  call- 
ed my  son  out  of  Egypt — As  they  called  them,  so  they  went  from 
them,  they  sacrificed  unto  Baalam  and  burnt  incense  to  graven 
images." 

This  passage,  falsely  called  a  prophecy  of  Christ,  refers  to 
the  children  of  Israel  coming  out  of  Egypt  in  the  time  of  Pha- 
raoh, and  to  the  idolatry  they  committed  afterwards.  To  make 
it  apply  to  Jesus  Christ,  he  must  then  be  the  person  who  sacri- 
ficed unto  Baalam  and  burnt  incense  to  graven  images,  for  the  per- 
son called  out  of  Egypt  by  the  collective  name,  Israel,  and  the 
persons  committing  this  idolatry,  are  the  same  persons,  or  the 
descendants  of  them.  This  then  can  be  no  prophecy  of  Jesus 
Christ,  unless  they  are  willing  to  make  an  idolater  of  him.  I  pass 
on  to  the  fourth  passage  called  a  prophecy  by  the  writer  of  the 
book  of  Matthew. 

This  is  introduced  by  a  story,  told  by  nobody  but  himself,  and 
scarcely  believed  by  any  body,  of  the  slaughter  of  all  the  chil- 
dren under  two  years  old,  by  the  command  of  Herod.  A  thing 
which  it  is  not  probable  should  be  done  by  Herod,  as  he  on- 
ly held  an  office  under  the  Roman  government,  to  which  appeals 
could  always  be  had,  as  we  see  in  the  case  of  Paul. 

Matthew,  however,  having  made  or  told  his  story,  says,  chap, 
ii.  v.  17. — "  Then  was  fulfilled  that  which  was  spoken  by  Jere- 
my, the  prophet,  saying, — In  Ramah  was  there  a  voice  heardy  la- 
mentation,  weeping  and  great  mourning  ,*  Rachael  weeping  for  her 
children,  and  would  not  be  comforted  because  tfiey  were  not." 

This  passage  is  in  Jeremiah,  chap.  xxxi.  ver.  15,  and  this 
verse,  when  separated  from  the  verses  before  and  after  it,  and 
which  explains  its  application,  might  with  equal  propriety  be  ap- 
plied to  every  case  of  wars,  sieges,  and  other  violences,  such  as 
the  Christians  themselves  have  often  done  to  the  Jews,  where 
mothers  have  lamented  the  loss  of  their  children.  There  is 
nothing  in  the  verse  taken  singly  that  designates  or  points  out 
any  particular  application  of  it,  otherwise  than  it  points  to  some 
circumstances  which,  at  the  time  of  writing  it,  had  already  hap- 
pened, and  not  to  a  thing  yet  to  happen,  for  the  verse  is  in  the 
preter  or  past  tense.  I  go  to  explain  the  case,  and  show  the  ap- 
plication of  the  verse. 

Jeremiah  lived  in  the  time  that  Nebuchadnezzar  besieged, 
took,  plundered,  and  destroyed  Jerusalem,  and  led  the  Jews 
captive  to  Babylon.  He  carried  his  violence  against  the  Jews 
to  every  extreme.  He  slew  the  sons  of  king  Zedekiah  before 


THE    PROPHECIES.  215 

k 

his  face,  he  then  put  out  the  eyes  of  Zedekiah,  and  Kept  him  in 
prison  till  the  day  of  his  death. 

It  is  of  this  time  of  sorrow  and  suffering  to  the  Jews  that  Je- 
remiah is  speaking.  Their  temple  was  destroyed,  their  land  des- 
olated, their  nation  and  government  entirely  broken  up,  and 
themselves,  men,  women,  and  children,  carried  into  captivity. 
They  had  too  many  sorrows  of  their  own,  immediately  before 
their  eyes,  to  permit  them,  or  any  of  their  chiefs,  to  be  employ- 
ing themselves  on  things  that  might,  or  might  not,  happen  in  the 
world  seven  hundred  years  afterwards. 

It  is,  as  already  observed,  of  this  time  of  sorrow  and  suffering 
to  the  Jews  that  Jeremiah  is  speaking  in  the  verse  in  question. 
In  the  two  next  verses,  the  16th  and  17th,  he  endeavours  to  con- 
sole the  sufferers  by  giving  them  hopes,  and  according  to  the 
fashion  of  peaking  in  those  days,  assurances  from  the  Lord,  that 
their  sufferings  should  have  an  end,  and  that  their  children  should 
retwn  again  to  their  men  land.  But  I  leave  the  verses  to  speak 
for  themselves,  and  the  Old  Testament  to  testify  against  the 
New. 

Jeremiah,  chap.  xxxi.  ver.  15. — "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  a  voice 
was  heard  in  Ramah  (it  is  in  the  preter  tense)  lamentation  and 
bitter  weeping  :  Rachael,  weeping  for  her  children  because  they 
were  not." 

Verse  16. — "  Thus  saith  the  Lord,  refrain  thy  voice  from 
weeping,  and  thine  eyes  from  tears  ;  for  thy  work  shall  be  re- 
warded, saith  the  Lord,  and  THEY  shall  come  again  from  the  land 
of  the  enemy." 

Verse  17. — "  And  there  is  hope  in  thine  end,  saith*  the  Lord, 
that  thy  children  shall  come  again  to  their  own  border." 

By  what  strange  ignorance  or  imposition  is  it,  that  the  children 
of  which  Jeremiah  speaks,  (meaning  the  people  of  the  Jewish 
nation,  scripturally  called  children  of  Israel,  and  not  mere  infants 
under  two  years  old,)  and  who  were  to  return  again  from  the 
land  of  the  enemy,  and  come  again  into  their  own  borders,  can 
mean  the  children  that  Matthew  makes  Herod  to  slaughter  ? 
Could  those  return  again  from  the  land  of  the  enemy,  or  how  can 
the  land  of  the  enemy  be  applied  to  them  ?  Could  they  come 
again  to  their  own  borders  ?  Good  heaven  !  How  has  the  world 
been  imposed  upon  by  Testament-makers,  priestcraft,  and  pre- 
tended prophecies.  I  pass  on  to  the  fifth  passage  called  a  pro- 
phecy of  Jesus  Christ. 

This,  like  two  of  the  former,  is  introduced  by  dream.  Joseph 
dreamed  another  dream,  and  dreameth  of  another  Angel.  And 
Matthew  is  again  the  historian  of  the  dream  and  the  dreamer. 
If  it  were  asked  how  Matthew  could  know  what  Joseph  dreamed, 
neither  the  Bishop  nor  all  the  Church  could  answer  the  question. 
Perhaps  it  was  Matthew  that  dreamed  and  not  Joseph  ;  that  is, 
Joseph. dreamed  by  proxy,  in  Matthew's  brain,  as  they  tell  us 


216  EXAMINATION   OF 

Daniel  dreamed  for  Nebuchadnezzar.  But  be  this  as  it  may, 
I  go  on  with  my  subject. 

The  account  of  this  dream  is  in  Matthew,  chap.  ii.  ver.  19. — 
"  But  when  Herod  was  dead,  behold  an  angel  of  the  Lord  ap- 
peared in  a  dream  to  Joseph  in  Egypt — Saying,  arise  and  take 
the  young  child  and  its  mother,  and  go  into  the  land  of  Israel, 
for  they  are  dead  which  sought  the  young  child's  life — and  he 
arose  and  took  the  young  child  and  his  mother,  and  came  into  the 
land  of  Israel.  But  when  he  heard  that  Archelaus  did  reign  in 
Judea  in  the  room  of  his  father  Herod,  he  was  afraid  to  go  thither. 
Notwithstanding  being  warned  of  God  in  a  dream  (here  is  an- 
other dream)  he  turned  aside  into  the  parts  of  Galilee  ;  and  he 
came  and  dwelt  in  a  city  called  Nazareth,  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
which  was  spoken  by  the  prophets. — He  shall  be  called  a  Nazarine." 

Here  is  good  circumstantial  evidence,  that  Matthew  dreamed, 
for  there  is  no  such  passage  in  all  the  Old  Testament  :  and  I  in- 
vite the  bishop  and  all  the  priests  in  Christendom,  including 
those  of  America,  to  produce  it.  I  pass  onto  the  sixth  passage, 
called  a  prophecy  of  Jesus  Christ. 

This,  as  Swift  says  on  another  occasion,  is  lugged  in  head  and 
shoulder  ;  it  need  only  to  be  seen  in  order  ta  be  hooted  as  a 
forced  and  far-fetched  piece  of  imposition. 

Matthew,  chap,  iv,  v.  12.  "  Now  when  Jesus  heard  that 
John  was  cast  into  prison,  he  departed  into  Galilee — and  leaving 
Nazareth,  he  came  and  dwelt  in  Capernaum,  which  is  upon  the 
sea  coast,  in  the  borders  of  Zebulon  and  Nephthalim — That  it 
might  be  .fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  Esaias  (Isaiah)  the 
prophet,  saying,  The  land  of  Zebulon  and  the  land  of  Nephthalim, 
by  the  way  of  the  sea,  beyond  Jordan,  in  Galilee  of  th^  Gerdiles — the 
people  which  sat  in  darkness  saw  great  light,  and  to  them  which  sat 
in  the  region  and  shadow  of  death,  liglit  is  springing  upon  them" 

I  wonder  Matthew  has  not  made  the  cris-cross-row,  or  the 
christ-cross-row  (I  know  not  how  the  priests  spell  it)  into  a  pro- 
phecy. He  might  as  well  have  done  this  as  cut  out  these  un- 
connected and  undescriptive  sentences  from  the  place  they  stand 
in  and  dubbed  them  with  that  title. 

The  words,  however,  are  in  Isaiah,  chap.  ix.  ver.  1,2,  as  fol- 
lows : — 

"  Nevertheless  the  dimness  shall  not  be  such  as  was  in  her 
vexation,  when  at  the  first  he  lightly  afflicted  the  land  of  Zebulon 
and  t/ie  land  of  Nephthali,  and  afterward  did  more  grievously  af- 
flict her  by  the  way  of  tfie  sea,  beyond  Jordan  in  Galilee  of  the  na- 
tions." 

All  this  relates  to  two  circumstances  that  had  already  happened, 
at  the  time  these  words  in  Isaiah  were  written.  The  one,  where 
the  land  of  Zebulon  and  Nephthali  had  been  lightly  afflicted,  and 
afterwards  more  grievously  by  the  way  of  the  sea.  But  observe, 
reader,  how  Matthew  has  falsified  the  text.  He  begins  his  quota- 


THE    PROPHECIES.  217 

fion  at  a  part  of  the  verse  where  there  is  not  so  much  as  a  comma, 
and  thereby  cuts  off  every  thing  that  relates  to  the  first  affliction. 
He  then  leaves  out  all  that  relates  to  the  second  affliction,  and  by 
this  means  leaves  out  every  thing  that  makes  the  verse  intelligi- 
ble, and  reduces  it  to  a  senseless  skeleton  of  names  of  towns. 

To  bring  this  imposition  of  Matthew  clearly  and  immediately 
before  the  eye  of  the  reader,  I  will  repeat  the  verse,  and  put  be- 
tween crotchets  the  words  he  has  left  out,  and  put  in  Italics  those 
he  has  preserved. 

[Nevertheless  the  dimness  shall  not  be  such  as  was  in  her  vex- 
ation when  at  the  first  he  lightly  afflicted]  the  land  of  Zebulon  and 
the  land  ofNephthali,  [and  did  afterwards  more  grievously  afflict 
her]  by  the  way  of  the  sea  beyond  Jordan  in  Galilee  of  the  nations. 

What  gross  imposition  is  it  to  gut,  as  the  phrase  is,  a  verse  in 
this  manner,  render  it  perfectly  senseless,  and  then  puff  it  off  on 
a  credulous  world  as  a  prophecy.  I  proceed  to  the  next  verse. 

Ver.  2.  "The  people  that  walked  in  darkness  have  seen  a 
great  light  ;  they  that  dwell  in  the  land  of  the  shadow  of  death, 
upon  them  hath  the  light  shined."  All  this  is  historical,  and  not 
in  the  least  prophetical.  The  whole  is  in  the  preter  tense  :  it 
speaks  of  things  that  had  been  accomplished  at  the  time  the  words 
were  written,  and  not  of  things  to  be  accomplished  afterwards. 

As  then  the  passage  is  in  no  possible  sense  prophetical,  nor 
intended  to  be  so,  and  that  to  attempt  to  make  it  so,  is  not  only  to 
falsify  the  original,  but  to  commit  a  criminal  imposition  ;  it  is 
matter  of  no  concern  to  us,  otherwise  than  as  curiosity,  to  know 
who  the  people  were  of  which  the  passage  speaks,  that  sat  in 
darkness,  and  what  the  light  was  that  had  shined  in  upon  them. 

If  we  look  into  the  preceding  chapter,  the  8th,   of  which  the 
9th  is  only  a  continuation,  we  shall  find  the  writer  speaking,  at 
the  19th  verse,  of  "  witches  and  wizards  who  peep  about  and  mut- 
ter," and  of  people  who  made  application  to  them  ^  and  he  preach- 
es and  exhorts  them  against  this  darksome  practice.    It  is  of  this 
people,   and  of  this  darksome  practice,  or  walking  in  darkness, 
that  he  is  speaking  at  the  2d  verse  of  the  9th  chapter  ;  and  with 
respect  to  the  light  that  had  shined  in  upon  themj  it  refers  entirely 
his  own  ministry,  and  to  the  boldness  of  it,  which  opposed  itse1 
to  that  of  the  witches  and  ivizards  who  peeped  about  and  muttered. 

Isaiah  is,  upon  the  whole,  a  wild  disorderly  writer,  preserving 
in  general  no  clear  chain  of  perception  in  the  arrangement  of  his 
ideas,  and  consequently  producing  no  defined  conclusions  from 
them.  It  is  the  wildness  of  his  style,  the  confusion  of  his  ideas, 
and  the  ranting  metaphors  he  employs,  that  have  afforded  so  ma- 
ny opportunities  to  priestcraft  in  some  cases,  and  to  superstition 
in  others,  to  impose  those  defects  upon  the  world  as  prophecies 
of  Jesus  Christ.  Finding  no  direct  meaning  in  them,  and  not 
knowing  what  to  make  of  them,  and  supposing  at  the  same  time 
they  were  intended  to  have  a  meaning,  they  supplied  the  defect 
19 


218  EXAMINATION    OF 

by  inventing  a  meaning  of  their  own,  and  called  it  his.  1  have, 
however,  in  this  place  done  Isaiah  the  justice  to  rescue  him  from 
the  claws  of  Matthew,  who  has  torn  him  unmercifully  to  pieces  ; 
and  from  the  imposition  or  ignorance  of  priests  and  commentators, 
by  letting  Isaiah  speak  for  himself. 

If  the  words  walking  in  darkness,  and  light  breaking  in,  could  in 
any  case  be  applied  propheticaMy,  which  they  cannot  be,  they 
would  better  apply  to  the  times  we  now  live  in  than  to  any  other. 
The  world  has  "walked  in  darkness"  for  eighteen  hundred  years, 
both  as  to  religion  and  government,  and  it  is  only  since  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution  began  that  light  has  broken  in.  The  belief  of  one 
God,  whose  attributes  are  revealed  to  us  in  the  book  of  scripture 
of  the  creation,  which  no  human  hand  can  counterfeit  or  falsify, 
and  not  in  the  written  or  printed  book  which,  as  Matthew  has 
shown,  can  be  altered  or  falsified  by  ignorance  or  design,  is  now 
making  its  way  among  us  :  and  as  to  government,  the  light  is  al- 
ready gone  forth,  and  whilst  men  ought  to  be  careful  not  to  be 
blinded  by  the  excess  of  it,  as  at  a  certain  time  in  France,  when 
every  thing  was  Robespierrean  violence,  they  ought  to  reverence, 
and  even  to  adore  it,  with  all  the  firmness  and  perseverance  that 
true  wisdom  can  inspire. 

I  pass  on  to  the  seventh  passage,  called  a  prophecy  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew,  chap.  viii.  ver.  16.  "When  the  evening  was  come, 
they  brought  unto  him  (Jesus)  many  that  were  possessed  with 
devils,  and  he  cast  out  the  spirit  with  his  word,  and  healed  all  that 
were  sick. — That  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken  by  Esaias 
(Isaiah)  the  prophet,  saying,  himself  took  our  infirmities,  and  bear 
our  sicknesses." 

This  affair  of  people  being  possessed  by  devils,  and  of  casting 
them  out,  was  the  fable  of  the  day  when  the  books  of  the  New 
Testament  were  written.  It  had  not  existence  at  any  other  time. 
The  books  of  the  Old  Testament  mention  no  such  thing  ;  the  peo- 
ple of  the  present  day  know  of  no  such  thing  ;  nor  does  the  history 
of  any  people  or  country  speak  of  such  a  thing.  It  starts  upon 
us  all  at  once  in  the  book  of  Matthew,  and  is  altogether  an  in- 
vention of  the  New  Testament-makers  and  the  Christian  church. 
The  book  of  Matthew  is  the  first  book  where  the  word  Devil  is 
mentioned.*  We  read  in  some  of  the  books  of  the  Old  Testament 
of  things  called  familiar  spirits,  the  supposed  companions  of  people 
called  witches  and  wizards.  It  was  no  other  than  the  trick  of  pre- 
tended conjurors  to  obtain  money  from  credulous  and  ignorant 
people,  or  the  fabricated  charge  of  superstitious  malignancy  a- 
gainst  unfortunate  and  decrepid  old  age. 

But  the  idea  of  a  familiar  spirit,  if  we  can  affix  any  idea  to  the 
term,  is  exceedingly  different  to  that  of  being  possessed  by  a  dev- 

*  The  word  devil  is  a  personification  of  the  word  «*/. 


THE   PROPHECIES.  219 

il.  In  the  one  case,  the  supposed  familiar  spirit  is  a  dexterous 
agent,  that  comes  and  goes  and  does  as  he  is  bidden:  in  the  oth- 
er, he  is  a  turbulent  roaring  monster,  that  tears  and  tortures  the 
body  into  convulsions.  Reader,  whoever  thou  art,  put  thy  trust 
in  thy  Creator,  make  use  of  the  reason  he  endowed  thee  with,  and 
cast  from  thee  all  such  fables. 

The  passage  alluded  to  by  Matthew,  for  as  a  quotation  it  is  false, 
is  in  Isaiah,  chap.  liii.  ver.  4.  which  is  as  follows  : 

"Surely  he  (the  person  of  whom  Isaiah  is  speaking  of)  hath 
borne  our  griefs  and  carried  our  sorrows."  It  is  in  the  preter 
tense. 

Here  is  nothing  about  casting  out  devils,  nor  curing  of  sickness- 
es. The  passage,  therefore,  so  far  from  being  a  prophecy  of 
Christ,  is  not  even  applicable  as  a  circumstance. 

Isaiah,  or  at  least  the  writer  of  the  book  that  bears  his  name, 
employs  the  whole  of  this  chapter,  the  53d,  in  lamenting  the  suf- 
ferings of  some  deceased  persons,  of  whom  he  speaks  very  pathet- 
ically. It  is  a  monody  on  the  death  of  a  friend  ;  but  he  mentions 
not  the  name  of  the  person,  nor  gives  any  circumstance  of  him  by 
which  he  can  be  persoally  known ;  and  it  is  this  silence,  which  is 
evidence  of  nothing,  that  Matthew  has  laid  hold  of  to  put  the  name 
of  Christ  to  it ;  as  if  the  chiefs  of  the  Jews,  whose  sorrows  were 
then  great,  and  the  times  they  lived  in  big  with  danger,  were  never 
thinking  about  their  own  affairs,  nor  the  fate  of  their  own  friends, 
but  were  continually  running  a  wild  goose  chase  into  futurity. 

To  make  a  monody  into  a  prophecy  is  an  absurdity.  The  char- 
acters and  circumstances  of  men,  even  in  different  ages  of  the 
world,  are  so  much  alike,  that  what  is  said  of  one  may  with  pro- 
priety be  said  of  many  ;  but  this  fitness  does  not  make  the  pas- 
sage into  a  prophecy  ;  and  none  but  an  impostor  or  a  bigot  would 
call  it  so. 

Isaiah,  in  deploring  the  hard  fate  and  loss  of  his  friend,  men- 
tions nothing  of  him  but  what  the  human  lot  of  man  is  subject  to. 
All  the  cases  he  states  of  him,  his  persecutions,  his  imprisonment, 
his  patience  in  suffering,  and  his  perseverance  in  principle,  are 
all  within  the  line  of  nature  ;  they  belong  exclusively  to  none,  and 
may  with  justness  be  said  of  many.  But  if  Jesus  Christ  was  the 
person  the  church  represents  him  to  be,  that  which  would  exclu- 
sively apply  to  him,  must  be  something  that  could  not  apply  to 
any  other  person ;  something  beyond  the  line  of  nature  ;  some- 
thing beyond  the  lot  of  mortal  man ;  and  there  are  no  such  ex- 
pressions in  this  chapter,  nor  any  other  chapter  in  the  Old  Test- 
ament. 

It  is  no  exclusive  description  to  say  of  a  person,  as  is  said  of 
the  person  Isaiah  is  lamenting  in  this  chapter.  "He  was  oppress- 
ed, and  he  was  afflicted,  yet  Ju  opened  not  his  mouth  :  he  is  brought 
as  a  lamb  to  the  slaughter,  axd  as  a  sheep  before  his  shearers  is  dumb, 
so  he  opened  not  his  mouth."  This  may  be  said  of  thousands  of 


220  EXAMINATION    OF 

persons,  who  have  suffered  oppressions  and  unjust  death  with  pa- 
tience, silence,  and  perfect  resignation. 

Grotius,  whom  the  bishop  esteems  a  most  learned  man,  and  who 
certainly  was  so,  supposes  that  the  person  of  whom  Isaiah  is  speak- 
ing, is  Jeremiah.  Grotius  is  led  into  this  opinion,  from  the  agree- 
ment there  is  between  the  description  given  by  Isaiah,  and  the 
case  of  Jeremiah,  as  stated  in  the  book  that  bears  his  name.  If 
Jeremiah  was  an  innocent  man,  and  not  a  traitor  in  the  interest  of 
Nebuchadnezzar,  when  Jerusalem  was  besieged,  his  case  was 
hard  ;  he  was  accused  by  his  countrymen,  was  persecuted,  op- 
pressed, and  imprisoned,  and  he -says  of  himself,  (see  Jeremiah, 
chapter  ii.  ver.  19,)  "But  as  for  me,  Iwas  like  a  lamb  or  an  ox  thai  is 
brought  to  the  slaughter." 

I  should  be  inclined  to  the  same  opinion  with  Grotius,  had  Isaiah 
•lived  at  the  time  when  Jeremiah  underwent  the  cruelties  of  which 
he  speaks  ;  but  Isaiah  died  about  fifty  years  before  :  and  it  is  of  a 
person  of  his  own  time,  whose  case  Isaiah  is  lamenting  in  the  chap- 
ter in  question,  and  which  imposition  and  bigotry,  more  than  seven 
hundred  ye.ars  afterwards,  perverted  into  a  prophecy  of  a  person 
they  call  Jesus  Christ. 

I  pass  on  to  the  eighth  passage  called  a  prophecy  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew,  chap.  xii.  ver.  14.  "Then  the  pharisees  went  out 
and  held  a  council  against  him,  how  they  might  destroy  him — But 
when  Jesus  knew  it  he  withdrew  himself;  and  great  numbers  fol- 
lowed him,  and  he  healed  them  all — and  he  charged  them  that  they 
should  not  make  him  known  :  That  it  might  be  fulfilled  which 
was  spokon  by  Esaias  (Isaiah)  the  prophet,  saying, 

"  Behold  my  servant  whom  I  have  chosen  :  my  beloved  in 
whom  my  so"ul  is  well  pleased  ;  I  will  put  my  spirit  upon  him,  and 
he  shall  show  judgment  to  the  Gentiles — he  shall  not  strive  nor 
cry,  neither  shall  any  man  hear  his  voice  in  the  streets — a  bruised 
reed  shall  he  not  break,  and  smoking  flax  shall  he  not  quench, 
till  he  sends  forth  judgment  unto  victory — and  in  his  name  shall 
the  Gentiles  trust." 

In  the  first  place,  this  passage  hath  not  the  least  relation  to 
the  purpose  for  which  it  is  quoted. 

Matthew  says,  that  the  Pharisees  held  a  council  against  Jesus 
to  destroy  him — that  Jesus  withdrew  himself — that  great  num- 
bers followed  him — that  he  healed  them — and  that  he  charged 
them  they  should  not  make  him  known. 

But  the  passage  Matthew  has  quoted  as  being  fulfilled  by  these 
circumstances,  does  not  so  much  as  apply  to  any  one  of  them.  It 
has  nothing  to  do  with  the  Pharisees  holding  a  council  to  destroy 
Jesus — with  his  withdrawing  himself — with  great  numbers  follow- 
ing him — with  his  healing  them — nor  with  his  charging  them  not 
to  make  him  known. 

The  purpose  for  which  the  passage  is  quoted,  and  the  passage 


THE    PROPHECIES.  221 

itself,  are  as  remote  from  each  other,  as  nothing  from  something. 
But  the  case  is,  that  people  have  been  so  long  in  the  habit  of 
reading  the  books  called  the  Bible  and  Testament,  with  their  eyes 
shut,  and  their  senses  locked  up,  that  the  most  stupid  inconsist- 
encies have  passed  on  them  for  truth,  and  imposition  for  prophe- 
cy. The  all-wise  Creator  hath  been  dishonoured  by  being  made 
the  author  of  fable,  and  the  human  v.mid  degraded  by  believing 
it. 

In  this  passage,  as  in  that  last  mentioned,  the  name  of  the  per- 
son of  whom  the  passage  speaks  is  not  given,  and  we  are  left  in 
the  dark  respecting  him.  It  is  this  defect  in  the  history,  that  big- 
otry and  imposition  have  laid  hold  of,  to  call  it  prophecy. 

Had  Isaiah  lived  in  the  time  of  Cyrus,  the  passage  would  de- 
scriptively apply  to  him.  As  king  of  Persia,  his  authority  was 
great  among  the  Gentiles,  and  it  is  of  such  a  character  the  pas- 
sage speaks  ;  and  his  friendship  to  the  Jews  whom  he  liberated 
from  captivity,  and  who  might  then  be  compared  to  a  bruised  reed, 
was  extensive.  But  this  description  does  not  apply  to  Jesus 
Christ,  who  had  no  authority  among  the  Gentiles  ;  and  as  to  his 
own  countrymen,  figuratively  described  by  the  bruised  reed,  it 
was  they  who  crucified  him.  Neither  can  it  be  said  of  him  that 
he  did  not  cry,  and  that  his  voice  was  not  heard  in  the  street. 
As  a  preacher  it  was  his  business  to  be  heard,  inid  we  are  told 
that  he  travelled  about  the  country  for  that  purpose.  Matthew 
has  given  a  long  sermon,  which  (if  his  authority  is  good,  but 
which  is  much  to  be  doubted,  since  he  imposes  so  much,)  Jesus 
preached  to  a  multitude  upon  a  mountain,  and  it  would  be  a  quib- 
ble to  say  that  a  mountain  is  not  a  street,  since  it  is  a  place  equal- 
ly as  public. 

The  last  verse  in  the  passage  (the  4th,)  as  it  stands  in  Isai- 
ah, and  which  Matthew  has  not  quoted,  says,  '•'  He  shall  not  fail 
nor  be  discouraged  till  he  have  set  judgment  in  the  earth  and  the 
isles  shall  wait  for  his  law."  This  also  applies  to  Cyrus.  He 
was  not  discouraged,  he  did  not  fail,  he  conquered  all  Babylon, 
liberated  the  Jews,  arid  established  laws.  But  this  cannot  be  said 
of  Jesus  Christ,  who,  in  the  passage  before  us,  according  to  Mat- 
thew, withdrew  himself  for  fear  of  the  Pharisees,  and  charged  the 
people  that  followed  him  hot  to  make  it  known  where  he  was  ; 
and  who,  according  to  other  parts  of  the  Testament,  was  contin- 
ually moving  from  place  to  place  to  avoid  being  apprehended.* 

*  In  the  second  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  I  have  shown  that  the  book  ascribed 
to  Isaiah  is  not  only  miscellaneous  as  to  matter,  but  as  to  authorship  :  that  there  are 
parts  in  it  which  could  not  be  written  by  Isaiah,  because  they  speak  of  thing's  one 
hundred  and  fifty  years  after  he  was  dead.  The  instance  I  have  given  of  this,  in  that 
work,  corresponds  with  the  subject  I  arn  upon,  at  least  a  little  better  than  Matthew's, 
introduction  and  his  quotation. 

Isaiah  lived,  the  latter  part  of  his  life,  in  the  time  of  Hezektah,  and  it  was  about 

one  hundred  and  fifiy  years,  from  the  death  of  Hcxekiah  to  the  first  year  of  the  reign- 

of  Cyrus,  when  Cyrus  published  a  proclamation1,  which  is  given  in  the  first  chapter  of 

the  book  of  Ezra,  for  the  return  of  the  Jews  to  Jerusalem.     It  cannot  he  doubted,  al 

19* 


222  EXAMINATION    OF 

Uut  it  is  immaterial  to  us,  at  this  distance  of  time,  to  know  who 
the  person  was  :  it  is  sufficient  to  the  purpose  I  am  upon,  that  of 
detecting  fraud  and  falsehood,  to  know  who  it  was  not,  and  to 
show  it  was  not  the  person  called  Jesus  Christ. 

I  pass  on  to  the  ninth  passage  called  a  prophecy  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Matthew,  chap.  xxi.  v.  1.  "And  when  they  drew  nigh  unto 
Jerusalem,  and  were  comet*,".1  Bethpage,  unto  the  mount  of  Ol- 
ives, then  Jesus  sent  two  of  his  disciples,  saying  unto  them,  go 
into  the  village  over  against  you,  and  straightway  ye  shall  find  an 
ass  tied,  and  a  colt  with  her,  loose  them  and  bring  them  unto  me 
— and  if  any  man  say  aught  to  you,  ye  shall  say,  the  Lord  hath 
need  of  them,  and  straightway  he  will  send  them. 

"  All  this  was  done  that  it  might  be  fulfilled  which  was  spoken 
by  the  prophet,  saying,  Tell  ye  the  daughter  of  Sion,  behold  ilij 
king  comelh  un'o  thee  nieek}  and  setting  on  an  ass,  and  a  colt  tJie 
foal  of  an  ass." 

Poor  ass  !  let  it  be  some  consolation  amidst  all  thy  sufferings, 
that  if  the  heathen  world  erected  a  bear  into  a  constellation,  the 
Christian  world  has  elevated  thee  into  a  prophecy. 

This  passage  is  in  Zechariah,  chap.  ix.  ver.  9,  and  is  one  of 
the  whims  of  friend  Zechariah  to  congratulate  his  countrymen, 
who  were  then  returning  from  captivity  in  Babylon,  and  himself 
with  them,  to  Jerusalem.  It  has  no  concern  with  any  other  sub- 
ject. It  is  strange  that  apostles,  priests,  and  commentators,  nev- 
er permit,  or  never  suppose,  the  Jews  to  be  speaking  of  their 
own  affairs.  Every  thing  in  the  Jewish  books  is  perverted  and 
distorted  into  meanings  never  intended  by  the  writers.  Even  the 
poor  ass  must  not  be  a  Jew-ass  but  a  Christian-ass.  I  wonder 
they  did  not  make  an  apostle  of  him,  or  a  bishop,  or  at  least  make 

least  it  ought  not  to  be  doubted,  that  the  Jews  would  feel  an  affectionate  gratitude  for 
this  act  of  benevoler.:  justice,  and  it  is  natural  they  would  express  that  gratitude  in  the 
customary  etyle,  bombastical  and  hyperbolical  as  it  was,  which  they  used  on  extraor- 
dinary occasions,  nod  which  was,  and  still  is  in  practice  with  all  the  eastern  nations. 

The  instance  to  which  I  refer,  and  which  i.s  given  in  the  second  part  of  the  Age  of 
Reason,  is  the  last  verse  of  the  44th  chapter,  and  the  beginning  of  the  45th — in  these 
words  :  "  That  saith  of  Cyrus,  he  is  my  ahephcrd  and  shall  perform  all  my  pleas- 
ure :  even  saying  to  Jerusalem,  thou  shall  be  built,  and  to  the  Temple,  thy  foun- 
dation shall  be  laid.  Thus  faith  the  Lord  to  his  anointed,  to  Cyrus,  whose  right 
hand  I  have  holden  to  subdue  nations  before  him;  and  I  will  loose  the  loins  of 
kings,  to  open  before  him  the  two-leaved  gates,  and  the  gates  shall  not  be  shut." 

This  complimentary  address  is  in  the  present  tense,  which  shows  that  the  tilings  of 
which  it  speaks  wore  in  existence  at  the  time  of  writing  it  ;  and  consequently,  that 
the  author  mast  have  been  at  least  one  hundred  and  fifty-  years  later  than  Isaiah,  and 
that  the  book  which  bears  his  name  is  a  compilalion.  The  Proverbs  called  Solomon's, 
and  the  Psalms  called  David's,  are  of  the  same  kind.  The  two  last  verses  of  the 
second  book  of  Chronicles,  and  the  three  first  verses  of  the  first  chapter  of  Ezra,  are 
word  for  word  the  same ;  which  show  tint  the  compilers  of  the  Bible  mixed  the  writing's 
of  different  authors  together,  and  put  them  under  some  common  head. 

As  we  have  here  an  instance  in  the  44th  and  45th  chapters  of  the  introduction  of 
the  name  of  Cyrus  into  a  book  to  which  it  cannot  belong,  it  affords  good  ground  to 
conclude,  that  the  passage  in  the  42d  chapter,  in  which  the  character  of  Cyrus  is  giv- 
en without  hit  name,  has  been  introduced  in  like  manner,  and  that  the  person  there 
spoken  of  is  Cyrus 


THE    PROPHECIES.  223 

him  speak  and  prophecy.  He  could  have  lifted  up  his  voice  as 
loud  as  any  of  them. 

Zechariah,  in  the  first  chapter  of  his  book,  indulges  himself  in 
several  whims  on  the  joy  of  getting  back  to  Jerusalem.  He  says 
at  the  8th  verse,  "  I  saw  by  night  (Zechariah  was  a  sharp-sight- 
ed seer)  and  behold  a  man  sitting  on  'dh.'ed  horse,  (yes,  reader,  a 
red  horse)  and  he  stood  among  the  myrtle  trees  that  were  in  the 
bottom,  and  behind  him  were  red  /torses  speckled  and  white"  He 
says  nothing  about  green  horses,  nor  blue  horses,  perhaps  because 
it  is  difficult  to  distinguish  green  from  blue  by  night,  but  a  Chris- 
tian can  have  no  doubt  they  were  there,  because  "faith  is  the  ev- 
idence of  things  not  seen." 

Zechariah  then  introduces  an  angel  among  his  horses,  but  he 
does  not  tell  us  what  colour  the  angel  was  of,  whether  black  or 
white,  nor  whether  he  came  to  buy  horses,  or  only  to  look  at  them 
as  curiosities,  for  certainly  they  were  of  that  kind.  Be  this  how- 
ever, as  it  may,  he  enters  into  conversation  with  this  angel,  on 
the  joyful  affair  of  getting  back  to  Jerusalem,  and  he  saith  at  the 
16th  verse,  "  Therefore,  thus  saith  the  Lord,  /  am  returned  to 
Jerusalem  with  mercies  ;  my  house  shall  be  built  in  it,  saith  the 
Lord  of  hosts,  and  a  line  shall  be  stretched  forth  upon  Jerusa- 
lem." An  cxpressiop  signifying  the  rebuilding  i^e  city. 

All  this,  whimsical  and  imaginary  as  it  is,  suiiicicntly  proves 
that  it  was  the  entry  of  the  Jews  into  Jerusalem  from  captivity, 
and  not  the  entry  of  Jesus  Christ  seven  hundred  years  afterwards, 
that  is  the  subject  upon  which  Zechariah  is  always  speaking. 

As  to  the  expression  of  riding  upon  an  ass,  which  commenta- 
tors represent  as  a  sign  of  humility  in  Jesus  Christ,  the  case  is, 
he  never  was  so  well  mounted  before.  The  asses  of  those  coun- 
tries are  large  and  well-proportioned,  and  were  anciently  the 
chief  of  riding  animals.  Their  beasts  of  burden,  and  which 
served  also  for  the  conveyance  of  the  poor,  were  camels  and  drom- 
edaries. We  read  in  Judges,  chap.  x.  ver.  4,  that  "  Jair  (one 
of  the  Judges  of  Israel)  had  thirty  sons  that  rode  on  thirty  ass- 
colts,  arid  they  had  thirty  cities."  But  commentators  distort  ev- 
ery thing. 

There  is  besides  very  reasonable  grounds  to  conclude  that  this 
story  of  Jesus  riding  publicly  into  Jerusalem,  accompanied,  as  it 
is  said  at  the  8th  and  9th  verses,  by  a  great  multitude,  shouting 
and  rejoicing,  and  spreading  their  garments  by  the  way,  is  alto- 
gether a  story  destitute  of  truth. 

In  the  last  passage  called  a  prophecy  that  I  examined,  Jesus 
is  represented  as  withdrawing,  that  is,  running  away,  arid  con- 
cealing himself  for  fear  of  being  apprehended,  and  charging  the 
people  that  were  with  him  not  to  make  him  known.  No  new  cir- 
cumstance had  arisen  in  the  interim  to  change  his  condition  for 
the  better  ;  yet  here  he  is  represented  as  making  his  public  entry 
into  the  same  city  fron.  which  he  had  fled  for  safety.  The  two 


224  EXAMINATION    OF 

cases  contradict  each  other  so  much,  that  if  both  are  not  false, 
one  of  them  at  least  can  scarcely  be  true.  For  my  own  part,  I 
do  not  believe  there  is  one  word  of  historical  truth  in  the  wholo 
book.  I  look  upon  it  at  best  to  be  a  romance  ;  the  principal  per- 
sonage of  which  is  an  imaginary  or  allegorical  character  founded 
upon  some  tale,  and  in  vA,  ich  the  moral  is  in  many  parts  good, 
and  the  narrative  part  very  badly  and  blunderingly  written. 

I  pass  on  to  the  tenth  passage,  called  a  prophecy  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew,  chap.  xxvi.  ver.  51.  "And  behold  one  of  them 
which  was  with  Jesus  (meaning  Peter)  stretched  out  his  hand, 
and  drew  his  sword,  and  struck  a  servant  of  the  high  priest,  and 
smote  off  his  ear.  Then  said  Jesus  unto  him,  Put  up  again  thy 
sword  into  its  place,  for  all  they  that  take  the  sword  shall  perish 
with  the  sword.  Thinkest  thou  that  I  cannot  now  pray  to  my 
Father,  and  he  shall  presently  give  me  more  than  twelve  legions 
of  angels?  But  how  then  shall  the  scriptures  be  fulfilled  that 
thus  it  must  be  ?  In  that  same  hour  Jesus  said  to  the  multitudes, 
are  ye  come  out  as  against  a  thief  with  swords  and  with  staves 
for  to  take  me  ?  I  sat  daily  with  you  teaching  in  the  temple,  and 
ye  laid  no  hold  on  me.  But  all  this  was  done  that  the  scriptures 
of  the  prophets  might  be  fulfilled. 

This  loose  and  general  manner  of  speaking,  admits  neither  of 
detection  nor  of  proof.  Here  is  no  quotation  given,  nor  the  name 
of  any  Bible  author  mentioned,  to  which  reference  can  be  had. 

There  are,  however,  some  high  improbabilities  against  the 
truth  of  the  account. 

First-^-It  is  not  probable  that  the  Jews,  who  were  then  a  con- 
quered people,  and  under  subjection  to  the  Homans,  should  be 
permitted  to  wear  swords. 

Secondly — If  Peter  had  attacked  the  servant  of  the  high  priest 
and  cut  off  his  ear,  he  would  have  been  immediately  taken  up  by 
the  guard  that  took  up  his  master,  and  sent  to  prison  with  him. 

Thirdly — What  sort  of  disciples  and  preaching  apostles  must 
those  of  Christ  have  been  that  wore  swords  ? 

Fourthly — This  scene  is  represented  to  have  taken  place  the 
same  evening  of  what  is  called  the  Lord's  Supper,  which  makes, 
according  to  the  ceremony  of  it,  the  inconsistency  of  wearing 
swords  the  greater. 

I  pass  on  to  the  eleventh  passage  called  a  prophecy  of  Jesus 
Christ. 

Matthew,  chap,  xxvii.  ver.  3.  "  Then  Judas  which  had  be- 
trayed him,  when  he  saw  that  he  was  condemned,  repented  him- 
self, and  brought  again  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver  to  the  chief 
priests  and  elders,  saying,  I  have  sinned  in  that  I  have  betrayed 
the  innocent  blood.  And  they  said,  what  is  that  to  us,  see  thou  to 
that.  And  he  cast  down  the  pieces  of  silver,  and  departed  and 
went  and  hanged  himself— And  the  chief  priests  took  the  silver 


THE    PROPHECIES.  226 

pieces  and  said,  it  is  not  lawful  to  put  them  in  the  treasury,  be- 
cause it  is  the  price  of  blood — And  they  took  counsel  and  bought 
with  them  the  potter's  field  to  bury  strangers  in — Wherefore  that 
field  is  called  the  field  of  blood  unto  this  day.  Then  was  fulfill- 
ed i'nat  which  was  spoken  by  Jeremiah  the  prophet,  saying,  And 
they  took  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  the  price  of  him  that  was 
valued,  whom  they  of  the  children  of  Israel  did  value,  and  gave 
them  for  the  potter's  field,  as  the  Lord  appointed  me." 

This  is  a  most  bare-faced  piece  of  imposition.  The  passage 
in  Jeremiah,  which  speaks  of  the  purchase  of  a  field,  has  no  more 
to  do  with  the  case  to  which  Matthew  applies  it,  than  it  has  to 
do  with  the  purchase  of  lands  in  America.  I  will  recite  the 
whole  passage  : — 

Jeremiah,  chap,  xxxii.  v.  6.  "  And  Jeremiah  said,  the  word  of 
the  Lord  came  unto  me,  saying — Behold  Hanamiel,  the  son  of 
Shallum  thine  uncle,  shall  come  unto  thee,  saying,  buy  thee  my 
field  that  is  in  Anathoth,  for  the  right  of  redemption  is  thine  to 
buy  it — So  Hanamiel  mine  uncle's  son  came  to  me  in  the  court 
of  the  prison,  according  to  the  word  of  the  Lord,  and  said  unto 
me,  buy  my  field  I  pray  thee,  that  is  in  Anathoth,  which  is  in 
the  country  of  Benjamin,  for  the  right  of  inheritance  is  thine,  and 
the  redemption  is  thine  ;  buy  it  for  thyself.  Then  I  knew  that 
this  was  the  word  of  the  Lord — And  I  bought  the  field  of  Hana- 
miel mine  uncle's  son,  that  was  in  Anathoth,  and  weighed  him 
the  money,  even  seventeen  shekels  of  silver — and  I  subscribed 
the  evidence  and  sealed  it,  and  took  witnesses  and  weighed  him 
the  money  in  balances.  So  I  took  the  evidence  of  the  purchase; 
both  that  which  was  sealed  according  to  the  law  and  custom,  and 
that  which  was  open — and  I  gave  the  evidence  of  the  purchase 
unto  Baruch,  the  son  of  Neriah,  the  son  of  Maaseiah,  in  the 
sight  of  Hanamiel  mine  uncle's  son,  and  in  the  presence  of  the 
witnesses  that  subscribed  the  book  of  the  purchase,  before  all  the 
Jews  that  sat  in  the  court  of  the  prison — and  I  charged  Baruch 
before  them,  saying,  Thus  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Is- 
rael, Take  these  evidences,  this  evidence  of  the  purchase,  both 
which  is  sealed,  and  this  evidence  which  is  open,  and  put  them  in 
an  earthen  vessel,  that  they  may  continue  many  days — for  thus 
saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  the  God  of  Israel,  houses,  and  fields,  and 
vineyards,  shall  be  possessed  again  in  this  land." 

I  forbear  making  any  remark  on  this  abominable  imposition 
of  Matthew.  The  thing  glaringly  speaks  for  itself.  It  is  priests 
and  commentators  that  I  rather  ought  to  censure,  for  having 
preached  falsehood  so  long,  and  kept  people  in  darkness  with 
respect  to  those  impositions.  I  am  not  contending  with  these 
men  upon  points  of  doctrine,  for  I  know  that  sophistry  has  always 
a  city  of  refuge.  I  am  speaking  of  facts  ;  for  wherever  the 
thing  called  a  fact  is  a  falsehood,  the  faith  founded  upon  it  is  de- 
lusion, and  the  doctrine  raised  upon  it  not  true.  Ah,  reader, 


226  EXAMINATION    OF 

put  thy  trust  in  thy  Creator,  and  thou  wilt  be  safe  !  but  if  thou 
trustest  to  the  book  called  the  Scriptures,  thou  trustest  to  the  rot- 
ten staff  of  fable  and  falsehood.  But  I  return  to  my  subject. 

There  is  among  the  whims  and  reveries  of  Zechariah,  mention 
made  of  thirty  pieces  of  silver  given  to  a  potter.  They  can  hard- 
ly have  been  so  stupid  as  to  mistake  a  potter  for  a  field  :  and  if 
they  had,  the  passage  in  Zechariah  has  no  more  to  do  with  Je- 
sus, Judas,  and  the  field  to  bury  strangers  in,  than  that  already 
quoted.  I  will  recite  the  passage. 

Zechariah,  chap.  xi.  ver.  7.  "  And  I  will  feed  the  flock  of 
slaughter,  even  you,  0  poor  of  the  flock  ;  and  I  took  unto  me 
two  staves  ;  the  one  I  called  Beauty  and  the  other  I  called  Bands, 
and  I  fed  the  flock — Three  shepherds  also,  I  cut  off  in  one 
month  ;  and  my  soul  loathed  them,  and  their  soul  also  abhorred 
me. — Then  said  I,  I  will  not  feed  you  ;  that  which  dieth,  let  it 
die  ;  and  that  wfrich  is  to  be  cut  off,  let  it  be  cut  off ;  and  let  the 
rest  eat  every  one  the  flesh  of  another. — And  I  took  my  staff,  even 
Beauty,  and  cut  it  asunder,  that  I  might  break  my  covenant  which 
I  had  made  with  all  the  people. — And  it  was  broken  in  that  day  ; 
and  so  the  poor  of  the  flock  who  waited  upon  me,  knew  that  it 
was  the  word  of  the  Lord. 

"  And  I  said  unto  them,  if  ye  think  good,  give  me  my  price, 
and  if  not,  forbear.  So  they  weighed  for  my  price  thirty  pieces  of 
silver.  And  the  Lord  said  unto  me,  cast  it  unto  the  potter,  a  goodly 
price  that  I  was  prised  at  of  «them  ;  and  I  took  the  thirty  pieces 
of  silver  and  cast  them  to  the  potter  in  the  house  of  the  Lord. 

^Whe«  I  cut  asunder  mine  other  staff,  even  Bands,  that  I 
might  break  the  brotherhood  between  Judah  and  Israel."* 

*  Whiston,  in  his  Essay  on  the  Old  Testament,  says,  that  the  passage  of  Zechariah 
of  which  I  have  spoken,  was  in  the  copies  of  the  Bible  of  the  first  century,  in  the 
book  of  Jeremiah,  from  whence,  saya  he,  it  was  taken  and  inserted  without  roher 
ence,  in  that  of  Zeehariah — well,  let  it  be  so,  it  does  not  make  the  case  a  whit  the 
better  for  the  JVew  Testament ;  but  it  makes  the  case  '.a  great  deal  the  worse  for  the 
Old.  Because  it  shows,  as  I  have  mentioned  respecting  some  passages  in  a  book  as- 
cribed to  Isaiah,  tfhat  the  works  of  different  authors  have  been  so  mixed  and  con- 
founded together,  they  cannot  now  be  discriminated,  except  where  they  are  historical 
chronological,  .or  biographical/  as  is  the  interpolation  in  Isaiah.  It  is  the  name  of 
Cyrus  inserted  where  It  could  not  be  inserted,  as  he  was  not  in  existence  till  onf 
hundred  and  fifty  yeans  after  the  time  of  Isaiah,  that  delects  the.  interpolation  and  the 
blunder  with  k. 

Whiston  was  a  man  of  great  literary  learning,  and,  what  is  of  much  higher  degreet 
-of  deep  scientific  learning.  He  was  one  of  the  best  and  most  celebrated  mathemati- 
cians of  his  time,  for  which  he  was  made  professor  of  mathematics  of  the  university 
of  Cambridge.  He  wrote  so  much  in  defence  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  of  what  he- 
calls  propliecies  of  Jesus  Christ,  that  at  last  he  began  to  suspect  the  truth  of  the  scrip- 
tures, and  wrote  against  thorn  ;  for  it  is  only  those  who  examine  them,  that  see  the 
imposition  Those  who  believe  them  most,  are  those  who  know  least  about  them. 

Whiston,  after  writing  so  much  in  defence  of  the  scriptures,  was  at  last  prosecuted 
for  writing  against  them.  It  was  this  that  gave  occasion  to  Swift,  in  his  ludicrous 
epigram  on  Ditton  and  Whiston,  each  of  which  set  up  to  find  out  the  longitude,  to  call 
the  one  good  master  Ditton,  and  the  other,  wicked  will  IVhiston.  But  as  Swift 
was  a  great  associate  with  the  Freethinkers  of  those  days,  such  a*  Bolingbroke,  Pope, 
aaid  others,  who  did  not  believe  the  book  called  the  scriptures,  there  is  no  certainty 
whether  he  wittily  called  him  loitked  for  defending  the  scriptures,  or  for  writing 
against  them.  The  known  character  of  Swift  decides  for  the  former. 


THE    PROPHECIES.  227 

There  is  no  making  either  head  or  tail  of  this  incoherent  gib- 
berish. His  two  staves,  one  called  Beauty  and  the  other  Bands, 
is  so  much  like  a  fairy  tale,  that  I  doubt  if  it  had  any  other  ori- 
gin.— There  is,  however,  no  part  that  has  the  least  relation  to 
the  case  stated  in  Matthew  ;  on  the  contrary  it  is  the  reverse  of 
it.  Here  the  thirty  pieces  of  silver,  whatever  it  was  for,  is  called 
a  goodly  price,  it  was  as  much  as  the  thing  was  worth,  and  ac- 
cording to  the  language  of  the  day,  was  approved  of  by  the 
Lord,  and  the  money  given  to  the  potter  in  the  house  of  the 
Lord.  In  the  case  of  Jesus  and  Judas,  as  stated  in  Matthew, 
the  thirty  pieces  of  silver  were  the  price  of  blood;  the  transac- 
tion was  condemned  by  the  Lord,  and  the  money,  when  refund- 
ed, was  refused  admittance  into  the  treasury.  Every  thing  in 
the  two  cases  is  the  reverse  of  each  other. 

Besides  this,  a  very  different  and  direct  contrary  account  to 
that  of  Matthew,  is  given  of  the  affair  of  Judas,  in  the  book 
called  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  ;  according  to  that  book  the  case 
is,  that  so  far  from  Judas  repenting  and  returning  the  money, 
and  the  high  priest  buying  .a  field  with  it  to  bury  strangers  in, 
Judas  kept  the  money  and  bought  a  field  with  it  for  himself ; 
and  instead  of  hanging  himself  as  Matthew  says,  he  fell  head- 
long and  burst  asunder — some  commentators  endeavour  to  get 
over  one  part  of  the  contradiction  by  ridiculously  supposing  that 
Judas  hanged  himself  first  and  the  rope  broke. 

Acts,  chap.  i.  ver.  16.  "  Men  and  brethren,  this  scripture 
must  needs  have  been  fulfilled  which  the  Holy  Ghost  by  the 
mouth  of  David  spake  before  concerning  Judas,  which  was  a 
guide  to  them  that  took  Jesus.  (David  says  not  a  word  about 
Judas)  ver.  17,  for  he  (Judas)  was  numbered  among  us*  and 
obtained  part  of  our  ministry." 

Ver.  18.  "  Now  this  man  purchased  a  field  with  the  reward  of 
iniquity,  and  falling  headlong  lie  burst  asunder  in  tht  midst,  and  his 
bowels  gushed  OM£."  Is  it  not  a  species  of  blasphemy  to  call  the 
New-Testament  revealed  religion,  when  we  see  in  it  such  contra- 
dictions and  absurdities. 

I  pass  on  to  the  twelfth  passage  called  a'prophecy  of  Jesus  Christ. 

Matthew,  chap,  xxvii.  ver.  35.  "  And  they  crucified  him, 
and  parted  his  garments,  casting  lots;  that  it  might  be  fulfilled 
v/hich  was  spoken  by  the  prophet,  They  parted  my  garments 
among  them,  and  upon  my  vesture  did  they  cast  lots."  This  ex- 
pression is  in  the  22d  Psalm,  ver.  18.  The  writer  of  that  Psalm 
(whoever  he  was,  for  the  Psalms  arc  a  collection  and  not  the  work 
of  one  man)  is  speaking  of  himself  and  his  own  case,  and  not  that 
of  another.  He  begins  this  Psalm  with  the  words  which  the 
New-Testament  writers  ascribed  to  Jesus  Christ.  "My  God, 
my  God,  why  hast  thou forsaken  me" — words  which  might  be  utter- 
ed by  a  complaining  man  without  any  great  impropriety,  but 
very  improperly  from  the  mouth  of  a  reputed  God. 


£28  EXAMINATION  OF 

The  picture  which  the  writer  draws  of  his  own  situation  in 
this  Psalm,  is  gloomy  enough.  He  is  not  prophesying,  but  com- 
plaining of  his  own  hard  case.  He  represents  himself  as  sur- 
rounded by  enemies  and  beset  by  persecutions  of  every  kind; 
and  by  way  of  showing  the  inveteracy  of  his  persecutors,  he 
says  at  the  18th  verse,  "  They  parted  my  garments  among  them, 
and  cast  lots  upon  my  vesture."  The  expression  is  in  the  present 
tense  ;  and  is  the  same  as  to  say,  they  pursue  me  even  to  the 
clothes  upon  my  back,  and  dispute  how  they  shall  devide  them  ; 
besides,  the  word  vesture  does  not  always  mean  cloathing  of  any 
kind,  but  properly,  or  rather  the  admitting  a  man  to,  or  investing 
him  with  property  ;  and  as  it  is  used  in  this  Psalm  distinct  from 
the  word  garment,  it  appears  to  be  used  in  this  sense.  But 
Jesus  had  no  property  ;  for  they  make  him  say  of  himself,  "  The 
foxes  have  Dholes  and  the  birds  of  the  air  have  nests,  but  the  Son  of 
man  hath  not  where  to  lay  his  head." 

JJut  be  this  as  it  may,  if  we  permit  ourselves  to  suppose  the 
Almighty  would  condescend  to  tell,  by  what  is  called  the  spirit  of 
prophecy,  what  could  come  to  pass  in  some  future  age  of  the 
world,  it  is  an  injury  to  our  own  faculties,  and  to  our  ideas  of  his 
greatness,  to  imagine  that  it  would  be  about  an  old  coat,  or  an 
old  pair  of  breeches,  or  about  any  thing  which  the  commoa 
accidents  of  life,  or  the  quarrels  that  attend  it,  exhibit  every  day. 

That  which  is  in  the  power  of  man  to  do,  or  in  his  will  not 
to  do,  is  not  a  subject  for  prophecy,  even  if  there  were  such  a 
thing,  because  it  cannot  carry  with  it  any  evidence  of  divine 
power,  or  divine  interposition :  The  ways  of  God  are  not  the 
ways  of  men.  That  which  an  almighty  power  performs,  or  wills, 
is  no*t  within  the  circle  of  human  power  to  do,  or  to  control. 
But  any  executioner  and  his  assistants  might  quarrel  about  divid- 
ing the  garments  of  a  sufferer,  or  divide  them  without  quarreling, 
and  by  that  means  fulfil  the  thing  called  a  prophecy,  or  set  it  aside. 

In  the  passage  before  examined,  I  have  exposed  the  falsehood 
of  them.  In  this  I  exhibit  its  degrading  meanness,  as  an  insult 
to  the  Creator  and  an  injury  to  human  reason. 

Here  end  the  passages  called  prophecies  by  Matthew. 

Matthew  concludes  his  book  by  saying,  that  when  Christ  ex- 
pired on  the  cross,  the  rocks  rent,  the  graves  opened,  and  the 
bodies  of  many  of  the  saints  arose  ;  and  Mark  says,  there  was 
darkness  over  the  land  from  the  sixth  hour  until  the  ninth.  They 
produce  no  prophecy  for  this  ;  but  had  these  things  been  facts, 
they  would  have  been  a  proper  suhjcct  for  prophecy,  because 
none  but  an  '  almighty  power  could  have  inspired  a  fore-knowl- 
edge of  them,  and  afterwards  fulfilled  them.  Since  then,  there 
is  no  such  prophecy,  but  a  pretended  prophecy  of  an  old  coat, 
the  proper  deduction  is,  there  were  no  such  things,  and  that  the 
book  of  Matthew  is  fable  and  falsehood. 

I  pass  on  to  the  book  called  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Mark. 


THE    PROPHECIES.  229 


THE  BOOK  OF  MARK. 

THERE  are  but  few  passages  in  Mark  called  prophecies  ;  and 
but  few  in  Luke  and  John.  Such  as  there  are  I  shall  examine, 
and  also  such  other  passages  as  interfere  with  those  cited  by 
Matthew. 

Mark  begins  his  book  by  a  passage  which  he  puts  in  the 
shape  of  a  prophecy.  Mark,  chap,  i,  ver  1. — "  The  beginning  ^ 
of  the  Gospel  of  Jesus  Christ,  the  Son  of  God — As  it  is  written* 
in  the  prophets,  Behold  I  send  my  messenger  before  thy  face,  which 
shall  prepare  the  way  before  thee."  Malachi,  chap.  iii.  ver.  1. 
The  passage  in  the  original  is  in  the  first  person.  Mark  makes 
this  passage  to  be  a  prophecy  of  John  the  Baptist,  said  by  the 
Church  to  be  a  forerunner  of  Jesus  Christ.  But  if  we  attend 
to  the  verses  that  follow  this  expression,  as  it  stands  in  Malachi, 
and  to  the  first  and  fifth  versed  ,of  the  next  chapter,  we  shall  see 
that  this  application  of  it  is  erroneous  and  false. 

Malachi  having  said  at  the  first  verse,  "Behold  I  will  send  my 
messenger,  and  he  shall  prepare  the  way  before  me,"  says  at  the 
second  verse,  "But  who  may  abide  the  day  of  his  coming?  and 
who  shall  stand  when  he  appeareth  ?  for  he  is  like  a  refiner's 
fire,  and  like  fuller's  soap." 

This  description  can  have  no  reference  to  the  birth  of  Jesus 
Christ,  and  consequently  none  to  John  the  Baptist.  It  is  a 
scene  of  fear  and  terror  that  is  here  described,  and  the  birth  of 
Christ  is  always  spoken  of  as  a  time  of  joy  and  glad  tidings. 

Malachi,  continuing  to  speak  on  the  same  subject,  explains  in 
the  next  chapter  what  the  scene  is  of  which  he  speaks  in  the 
verses  above  quoted,  and  who  the  person  is  whom  he  calls  the 
messenger. 

"  Behold,"  says  he,  chap.  iv.  ver.  1,  "the  day  cometh  that  shall 
burn  like  an  oven,  and  all  the* proud,  yea,  and  all  that  do  wick- 
edly, shall  be  stubble  ;  and  the  day  cometh  that  shall  burn  them 
up,  saith  the  Lord  of  hosts,  that  it  shall  leave  them  neither  root 
nor  branch." 

Ver.  5.  " "Behold  I  will  send  you  Elijah  the  prophet  before  the 
coming  of  the  great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Lord." 

By  what  right,  or  by  what  imposition  or  ignorance  Mark  has 
made  Elijah  into  John  the  Baptist,  and  Malachi's  description  of 
the  day  of  judgment  into  the  birth  day  of  Christ,  I  leave  to  the 
Bishop  to  settle. 

Mark,  in  the  second  and  third  verses  of  his  first  chapter,  con- 
founds two  passages  together,  taken  from  different  books  of  the 
Old  Testament.  The  second  verse,  "  Behold  I  send  my  mes- 
senger before  thy  face,  which  shall  prepare  the  way  before  me," 
is  taken,  as  I  have  said  before,  from  Malachi.  The  third  verse, 
which  saysj  "  The  voice  of  one  crying  in  the  wilderness,  prepare 
20 


EXAMINATION    OP 

ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  mase  his  path  straight/*  is  not  in 
chi,  but  in  Isaiah,  chap.  xi.  ver.  3.  Whiston  says,  that  both 
these  verses  were  originally  in  Isaiah.  If  so,  it  is  another  in- 
stance of  the  disordered  state  of  the  Bible,  and  corroborates 
what  I  have  said  with  respect  to  the  name  and  description  of 
Cyrus  being  in  the  book  of  Isaiah,  to  which  it  cannot  chronolo- 
gically belong. 

The  words  in  Isaiah,  chap.  xl.  ver.  3,  "  The  voice  of  him  that 
^cryeth  in  the  wilderness,  prepare  ye  the  way  of  the  Lord,  make  his 
path  straight,"  are  in  the  present  tense,  and  consequently  not 
predictive.  It  is  one  of  those  rhetorical  figures  which  the  Old 
Testament  authors  frequently  used.  That  it  is  merely  rhetor- 
ical and  metaphorical,  may  be  seen  at  the  6th  verse.  "  And 
the  voice  said,  cry  ;  and  he  said,  what  shall  I  cry?  Jill  flesh  is 
grass."  This  is  evidently  nothing  but  a  figure  ;  for  flesh  is  not 
grass  otherwise  than  as  a  figure  or  metaphor,  where  one  thing  is 
put  for  another.  Besides  which,  the  whole  passage  is  too  gen- 
eral and  declamatory  to  be  applied  exclusively  to  any  particular 
person  or  purpose. 

I  pass  on  to  the  eleventh  chapter. 

In  this  chapter,  Mark  speaks  of  Christ  riding  into  Jerusalem 
upon  a  colt,  but  he  does  not  make  it  the  accomplishment  of  a  pro- 
phecy, as  Matthew  has  done  ;  for  he  says  nothing  about  a  prophe- 
cy. Instead  of  which,  he  goes  on  the  other  tack,  and  in  order  to 
add  new  honours  to  the  ass,  he  makes  it  to  be  a  miracle  ;  for  he 
says,  ver.  2,  it  was  "a  colt  whereon  never  man  sat  ;"  signfyrng 
thereby,  that  as  the  ass  had  not  been  broken,  he  consequently  was 
inspired  into  good  manners,  for  we  do  not  hear  that  he  kicked  Je- 
sus Christ  off.  There  is  not  a  word  about  his  kicking  in  all  the 
four  Evangelists. 

I  pass  on  from  these  feats  of  horsemanship,  performed  upon  a 
jack-ass,  to  the  loth  chapter. 

At  the  24th  verse  of  this  chapter,  Mark  speaks  of  parting 
Christ's  garments  and  casting  lots  upon  them,  but  he  applies  no 
prophecy  to  it  as  Matthew  does.  He  rather  speaks  of  it  as  a 
thing  then  in  practice  with  executioners,  as  it  is  at  this  day. 

At  the  28th  verse  of  the  same  chapter,  Mark  speaks  of  Christ 
being  crucified  between  two  thieves  ;  that,  says  he,  "  the  scrip- 
tures might  be  fulfilled  which  sailh,  and  he  was  numbered  with  the 
transgressors."  The  same  thing  might  be  said  of  the  thieves. 

This  expression  is  in  Isaiah,  chap.  liii.  ver.  12 — Grotius  applies 
it  to  Jeremiah.  But  the  case  has  happened  so  often  in  the  world, 
where  innocent  men  have  been  numbered  with  transgressors,  and 
is  still  continually  happening,  that  it  is  absurdity  to  call  it  a  pro- 
phecy of  any  particular  person.  All  those  whom  the  church  call 
martyrs  were  numbered  with  transgressors.  All  the  honest  pat- 
riots who  fell  upon  the  scaffold  in  France,  in  the  time  of  Robes- 
pierre, were  numbered  with  transgressors  ;  and  if  himself  had  not 


THE    PROPHECIES.  231 

fallen,  the  same  case,  according  to  a  note  in  his  own  hand-writing, 
had  befallen  me ;  yel  I  suppose  the  Bishop  will  not  allow  that 
Isaiah  was  prophesying  of  Thomas  Paine. 

These  are  all  the  passages  in  Mark  which  have  any  reference 
to  prophecies. 

Mark  concludes  his.  ^>ook  hy  making  Jesus  say  to  his  disciples, 
chap.  xvi.  ver.  15,  "  Go  ye  into  all  the  world  and  preach  the  gos- 
pel to  every  creature ;  he  that  believeth  and  is  baptized  shall  be 
saved,  but  he  that  believeth  not  shall  be  damned  (fine  Popish  stuff* 
this,)  and  these  signs  shall  follow  them  that  believe  ;  in  my  name 
they  shall  'cast  out  devils  ;  they  shall  speak  with  new  tongues  ; 
they  shall  take  up  serpents,  and  if  they  drink  any  deadly  thing,  it 
shall  not  hurt  them  ;  they  shall  lay  hands  on  the  sick,  and  they 
shall  recover." 

Now,  the  Bishop,  in  order  to  know  if  he  has  all  this  saving  and 
wonder-working  faith,  should  try  those  things  upon  himself.  He 
should  take  a  good  dose  of  arsenic,  and  if  he  please,  I  will  send 
him  a  rattle-snake  from  America  !  As  for  myself,  as  I  believe  in 
God,  and  not  at  all  in  Jesus  Christ,  nor  in  the  books  called  the 
scriptures,  the  experiment  does  not  concern  me. 

I  pass  on  to  the  book  of  Luke. 

There  are  no  passages  in  Luke  called  prophecies,  excepting 
those  which  relate  to  the  passages  I  have  already  examined. 

Luke  .speaks  of  Mary  being  espoused  to  Joseph,  but  he  makes 
no  references  to  the  passage  in  Isaiah,  as  Matthew  does.  He 
speaks  also  of  Jesus  riding  into  Jerusalem  upon  a  colt  ;  But  he 
says  nothing  about  prophecy.  He  speaks  of  John  the  baptist,  and 
refers  to  the  passage  in  Isaiah  of  which  I  have  already  spoken. 

At  the  13th  chapter,  verse  31,  he  says,  "The  same  day  there 
came  certain  of  the  Pharisees,  saying  unto  him,  (Jesus)  get 
thee  out-  and  depart  hence,  for  Herod  will  kill  thee — and  he  said 
unto  them,  go  ye  and  tell  that  fox,  behold  I  cast  out  devils  and  I 
do  cures  to-day  and  to-morrow,  and  the  third  day  I  shall  be  per- 
fected." 

Matthew  makes  Herod  to  die  whilst  Christ  was  a  child  in  E- 
gypt,  and  makes  Joseph  to  return  with  the  child  on  the  news  of 
Herod's  death,  who  had  sought  to  kill  him.  Luke  makes  Herod 
to  be  living,  and  to  seek  the  life  of  Jesus,  after  Jesus  was  thirty 
years  of  age  ;  for  he  says,  chap.  iii.  v.  23,  "And  Jesus  began  to 
be  about  thirty  years  of  age,  being,  as  was  supposed,  the  son  of 
Joseph." 

The  obscurity  in  which  the  historical  part  of  the  New  Testa- 
ment is  involved  with  respect  to  Herod,  may  afford  to  prjests  and 
commentators  a  plea,  which  to  some  may  appear  plausible,  but  to 
none  satisfactory,  that  the  Herod  of  which  Matthew  speaks,  and 
the  Herod  of  which  Luke  speaks,  were  different  persons.  Mat- 
thew calls  Herod  a  king;  and  Luke,  chap.  iii.  v.  1,  calls  Herod, 
Tetrach,  (that  is,  Governor)  of  Galilee.  But  there  could  he  no 


232  EXAMINATION    OF 

such  person  as  a  king  Herod,  because  the  Jews  and  their  country 
were  then  under  the  dominion  of  the  Roman  Emperors  who  gov- 
erned then  by  Tetrachs  or  Governors. 

Luke,  chap.  ii.  makes  Jesus  to  be  born  when  Cyrenius  was 
Governor  of  Syria,  to  which  government  Judea  was  annexed;  and 
according  to  this,  Jesus  was  not  born  in  the  time  of  Herod.  Luke 
says  nothing  about  Herod  seeking  the  life  of  Jesus  when  he  was 
born  ;  nor  of  his  destroying  the  children  under  two  years  old  ;  nor 
of  Joseph  fleeing  with  Jesus  into  Egypt ;  nor  of  his  returning 
from  thence.  On  the  contrary,  the  book  of  Luke  speaks  as  if  the 
person  it  calls  Christ  had  never  been  out  of  Judea,  and  that  Her- 
od sought  his  life  after  he  commenced  preaching,  as  is  before 
stated.  I  have  already  shown  that  Luke,  in  the  book  called  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  (which  commentators  ascribe  to  Luke)  con- 
tradicts the  account  in  Matthew,  with  respect  to  Judas  and  the 
thirty  pieces  of  silver.  Matthew  says,  that  Judas  returned  the 
money,  and  that  the  high  priests  bought  with  it  a  field  to  bury 
strangers  in.  Luke  says,  that  Judas  kept  the  money,  and  bought 
a  field  with  it  for  himself. 

As  it  is  impossible  the  wisdom  of  God  should  err,  so  it  is  im- 
possible those  books  should  have  been  written  by  divine  inspiration. 
Our  belief  in  God,  and  his  unerring  wisdom,  forbids  us  to  be- 
lieve it.  As  for  myself,  I  feel  religiously  happy  in  the  total  dis- 
belief of  it( 

There  are  no  other  passages  called  prophecies,  in  Luke  than 
those  I  have  spoken  of.  I  pass  on  to  the  book  of  John. 


THE  BOOK  OF  ,JOHJV. 

JOHN,  like  Mark  and  Luke,  is  not  much  of  a  prophecy-monger. 
He  speaks  of  the  ass,  and  the  casting  lots  for  Jesus'  clothes, 
and  some  other  trifles,  of  which  I  have  already  spoken. 

John  makes  Jesus  to  say,  chap.  v.  ver.  46,  "  For  had  ye  be- 
lieved Moses,  yc  would  have  believed  me,  for  he  wrote  of  me." 
The  book  of  the  Acts,  in  speaking  of  Jesus,  says,  chap.  iii.  ver. 
22,  "  For  Moses  truly  said  unto  the  fathers,  a  prophet  shall  the 
Lord  your  God  raise  up  unto  you,  of  your  brethren,  like  unto  me, 
him  shall  ye  hear  in  all  things  whatsoever  he  shalt  say  unto 
you." 

This  passage  is  in  Deuteronomy,  chap,  xviii.  ver.  15.  They 
apply  it  as  a  prophecy  of  Jesus.  What  impositions  !  The  per- 
son spoken  of  in  Deuteronomy,  and  also  in  Numbers,  where  the 
same  person  is  spoken  of,  is  Joshua-,  the  minister  of  Moses, 
and  his  immediate  successor,  and  just  such  another  Robespier- 
rean  character  as  Moses  is  represented  to  have  been.  The  case, 
as  related  in  those  books,  is  as  follows : — 


THE    PROPHECIES.  233 

Moses  was  grown  old  and  near  to  his  end,  and  in  order  to  pre- 
vent confusion  after  his  death,  for  tlie  Israelites  had  no  settled  sys- 
tem of  government,  it  was  thought  best  to  nominate  a  successor 
to  Moses  while  he  was  yet  living.  This  was  done,  as  we  are 
told,  in  the  following  manner  : 

Numbers,  chap,  xxvii.  ver.  12.  "  And  the  Lord  said  unto 
Moses,  get  thee  up  into  this  mount  Abarim,  and  see  the  land 
which  I  have  given  unto  the  children  of  Israel — and  when  thou 
hast  seen  it,  thou  also  shall  be  gathered  unto  thy  people  as  Aaron 
thy  brother  is  gathered,  vcr.  15.  And  Moses  spake  unto  the 
Lord,  saying,  Let  the  Lord,  the  God  of  the  spirits  of  all  ilesh, 
set  a  man  over  the  congregation — YV  hich  may  go  out  before  them, 
and  which  may  go  in  before  them,  and  which  may  lead  them  out, 
and  which  may  bring  them  in,  that  the  congregation  of  the  Lord 
be  not  as  sheep  that  have  no  shepherd — And  the  Lord  said  unto 
Moses,  take  thee  Joshua,  the  son  of  Nun,  a  man  in  whom  is  the 
spirit,  and  lay  thine  hand  upon  him — and  set  him  before  Eleazar, 
the  priest,  and  before  all  the  congregation,  rmd  give  him  a  charge 
in  their  sight — and  thou  shalt  put  some  of  thine  honour  upon 
him,  that  all  the  congregation  of  the  children  of  Israel  may  be 
obedient — ver.  22,  and  Moses  did  as  the  Lord  commanded,  and 
he  took  Joshua,  and  set  him  before  Eleazar  the  priest,  and  be- 
fore all  the  congregation  ;  and  he  laid  hands  upon  him,  and  gave 
him  charge  as  the  Lord  commanded  by  the  hand  of  Moses." 

I  have  nothing  to  do,  in  this  place,  with  the  truth,  or  the  con- 
juration here  practised,  of  raising  up  a  successor  to  Moses  like 
unto  himself.  The  passage  sufficiently  proves  it  is  Joshua,  and 
that  it  is  an  imposition  in  John  to  make  the  case  into  a  prophecy 
of  Jesus.  But  the  prophecy-mongers  were  so  inspired  with 
falsehood,  that  they  never  speak  truth.* 

*  Newton,  Bishop  of  Bristol  in  England,  published  a  work  in  three  volumes,  enti- 
tled, "  Dissertations  on  the  Prophecies."  The  work  is  tediously  written  and  tire- 
some to  read.  He  strains  hard  to  make  every  passage  into  a  prophecy  that  suits  liia 
purpose. — Among;  others,  he  makes  this  expression  of  Mosc-:.-;,  "  the  Lord  shall  raise 
thee  up  a  prophet  like  unto  me,"  into  a  prophecy  of  Christ,  who  was  not.  born,  ac- 
cording to  the  Bible  chronologies,  till  fifteen  hundred  and  fifty-two  years  after  the  time 
of  Moses,  whereas  it  was  an  immediate  successor  to  Moses,  who  was  then  near  his 
end,  that  is  spoken  of  in  the  passage  above  quoted. 

This  Bishop,  the  better  to  impose  this  passage  on  tho  world  as  a  prophecy  of  Christ, 
has  entirely  omitted  the  account  in  the  book  of  Numbers  whirh  I  have  given  at  length, 
word  for  word,  and  which  shows,  beyond  the  possibility  of  a  doubt  that  the  person 
spoken  of  by  Moses,  is  Joshua,  and  no  other  person. 

Newton  is  but  a  superficial  writer.  He  takes  up  things  upon  hear-say,  and  insert* 
them  without  either  examination  or  reflection,  and  the  more  extraordinary  and  in- 
credible they  are,  the  better  he  likes  them. 

In  speaking  of  the  walls  of  Babylon,  (volume  the  first,  page  263,)  ho  makes  a 
quotation  from  a  traveller  of  the  name  of  Tavsrnur,  whom  he  calls  (by  way  of  giv- 
ing credit  to  what  he  says,)  a  celebrated  traveller,  that  those  walls  were  made  of 
burnt  brick,  ten  feet  square  and  three  feet  thick. — If  Newton  had  only  thought  of 
calculating  the  weight  of  such  a  brick,  he  would  have  seen  the  impossibility  of  their 
being  used  or  even  made.  A  brick  ten  feet  square,  and  three  fct-t  thick,  contains 
three  hundred  cubic  feet,  and  allowing  a  cubic  foot  of  brick  to  be  only  one  hundred 


234  EXAMINATION*    OF 

I  pass  on  to  the  last  passage  in  these  fables  of  the  Evangelists 
called  a  prophecy  of  Je;ms  Chnst. 

John  having  spoken  tf  Jesus  expiring  on  the  cross  between 
two  thieves,  says,  chap.  xix.  ver.  32.  "  Then  came  the  soldiers 
and  brake  the  legs  of  t.he  first  (meaning  one  of  the  thieves)  and 
of  the  other  which  was  crucified  with  him.  But  when  they  came 
to  Jesus  and  saw  that  he  was  dead  already,  they  brake  not  his 
legs — ver.  36,  for  these  things  were  done  that  the  Scripture 
should  be  fulfilled,  "  A  bor.e  of  him  sh-.tll  not  be  broken." 

The  passage  here  referred  to  is  in  Exodus,  and  has  no  more 
to  da  with  Jesus  than  with  the  ass  he  rode  upon  to  Jerusalem  ; 
— nor  yet  so  much,  if  a  roasted  jack-ass,  like  a  roasted  he-goat, 
might  be  eaten  at  a  Jewish  passover.  It  might  be  some  conso- 
lation to  an  ass  to  know,  that  though  his  bones  might  be  picked, 
they  would  not  be  broken.  I  go  to  state  the  case. 

The  book  of  Exodus,  in  instituting  the  Jewish  passover,  in 
which  they  were  to  eat  a  he-lamb  or  a  he-goat,  says,  chap.  xii. 
ver.  5,  "  Your  lamb  shall  be  without  blemish,  a  male  of  the  first 
year  ;  ye  shall  take  it  from  the  sheep  or  from  the  goats." 

pounds,  each  of  the  Bishop's  bricks  would  wvigh  thirty  tlumsand  pounds  ;  and  it  woukl 
take  about  thirty  cart  loads  of  clay  (one  horse  carts/  to  make  one  brick. 

But  his  account  of  the  stones  used  in  the  building  of  Solomon's  temple  (volume  2d, 
page  211,)  far  exceeds  his  l.ncks  of  ten  feet  square  in  the  walk  of  Babylon;  these 
are  but  brick-bats  compared  to  them. 

The  stones  (says  he)  employed  in  the  foundation,  were  in  magnitude  forty  cubits, 
that  is,  above  sixty  feet,  a  cubit,  says  he,  being  somewhat  more  than  one  foot  and  a 
half,  (a  cubit  is  one  foot  nine  inches)  and  the  superstructure  (says  this  Bishop)  was 
worthy  of  such  foundations.  There  were  some  stones,  says  he,  of  the  whitest  mar- 
ble  forty-five  cubits  long,  five  cubits  high,  and  six.  cubits  broad.  These  are  the  di- 
mensions this  Bishop  has  given,  which  in  measure  of  twelve  inches  to  a  foot,  is  78 
feet  nine  inches  long,  10  feet  6  indies  broad,  and  8  feet  three  inches  tiiick,  and  con- 
tains 7,234  cubic  feet.  I  now  go  to  demonstrate  the  imposition  of  this  Bishop. 

A  cubic  foot  of  water  weighs  sixty-two  pounds  and  a  half— The  specific  gravity 
of  marble  to  water  is  as  2  1-2  is  to  one.  The  weight  therefor.-  of  a  cubic  foot  of  mar- 
ble is  156  pounds,  which  multiplied  by  7,23-1,  the  number  of  cubic  feet  in  one  of  those 
stones,  makes  the  weight  of  it  to  be  1,128,504  pounds,  which  is  503  tons.  Allowing- 
then  a  horse  to  draw  about  half  a  ton,  it  will  require  a  thousand  horses  to  draw  one 
such  stone  on  the  ground;  how  then  were  they  to  be  lifted  into  the  building  b\  human 
hands  1 

The  Bishop  may  talk  of  faith  removing  mountains,  but  all  the  faith  of  all  the 
Bishops  that  ever  lived  could  not  remove  one  of  those  stones  and  their  bodily  strength 
given  in. 

This  Bishop  also  tells  of  great  'guns  used  by  the  Turks  at  the  taking  of  Constan- 
tinople, one  of  which,  he  says,  was  drawn  by  seventy  yoke  of  oxen,  and  by  two  thou- 
sand men.  Volume  3d,  page  117. 

The  weight  of  a  cannon  that  carries  a  bill  of  43  pounds,  which  is  the  largest  can- 
non that  nre  cast,  weighs  8,000  pounds,  about  three  tons  and  a  half,  and  may  be 
drawn  by  tl'iree  yoke  of  oxen.  Any  body  may  now  calcul  »te  what  the  weight  of  the 
Bishop's  great  gun  must  be,  that  required  seventy  yoke  of  oxen  to  draw  it.  This 
Bishop  beats  Gidliver. 

"Vt  hen  men  give  up  the  use  of  the  divine  gift  of  reason  in  writing  on  any  subject, 
ne  it  religious  or  any  thing  else,  there  are  no  bounds  to  their  extravagance',  nj  limit 
to  their  absurdities. 

The  three  volumes  which  this  Bishop  has  written  on  what  he  calls  the  prophecies, 
ro'iiain  above  1,2.90  pages,  and  he  says  in  vol.  3,  page  117,  "  /  bnve.  studied  brevity*'* 
Tins  is  a_s  marvellous  as  the  Bishop's  great  gnn. 


THE    PROPHECIES. 


235' 


The  book,  after  stating  some  ceremonies  to  be  used  in  killing 
and  dressing  it  (for  it  was  to  be  roasted,  not  boiled)  says,  ver.  43, 
"  And  the  Lord  said  unto  Moses  and  Aaron,  this  is  the  ordinance 
of  the  passover  :  there  shall  no  stranger  eat  thereof;  but  every 
man's  servant  that  is  bought  for  money,  when  thou  hast  circum- 
cised him,  then  shall  he  eat  thereof.  A  foreigner  shall  not  eat 
thereof.  In  one  house  shall  it  be  eaten  ;  thou  shait  not  carry 
forth  aught  of  the  flesh  thereof  abroad  out  of  the  house  ;  neither 
shall  ikou  brake  a  bone  thereof." 

We  here  see  that  the  case  as  it  stands  in  Exodus  is  a  cere- 
mony and  not  a  prophecy,  and  totally  unconnected  with  Jesus' 
bones,  or  any  part  of  him. 

John  having  thus  filled  up  the  measure  of  apostolic  fable,  con- 
cludes his  book  with  something  that  beats  all  fable  ;  for  he  says 
at  the  last  verse,  "  And  there  arc  also  many  other  things  which 
Jesus  did,  the  which  if  they  should  be  written  every  one,  /  sup- 
post  that  even  the  world  itself  could  not  contain  the  books  that  should 
be  written." 

This  is  what  in  vulgar  life  is  called  a  thumper  ;  that  is,  not  only 
a  lie,  but  a  lie  beyond  the  line  of  possibility  ;  besides  which  it  is 
an  absurdity,  for  if  they  should  be  written  in  the  world,  the 
world  would  contain  them. — Here  ends  the  examination  .of  the 
passages  called  prophecies. 


I  HAVE  now,  reader,  gone  through  and  examined  all  the  pas- 
sages which  the  four  books  of  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John, 
quote  from  the  Old  Testament,  and  call  them  prophecies  of  Je- 
sus Christ.  When  I  first  set  down  to  this  examination,  I  ex- 
pected to  find  cause  for  some  censure,  but  little  did  I  expect  to 
find  them  so  utterly  destitute  of  truth,  and  of  all  pretensions  to 
it,  as  I  have  shown  them  to  be. 

The  practice  which  the  writers  of  those  books  employ  is  not 
more  false  than  it  is  absurd.  They  state  some  trifling  case  of 
the  person  they  call  Jesus  Christ,  and  then  cut  out  a  sentence 
from  some  passage  of  the  Old  Testament,  and  call  it  a  prophecy 
of  that  case.  But  when  the  words  thus  cut  out  are  restored  to 
the  place  they  are  taken  from,  and  read  v/Mi  the  words  before 
and  after  them,  they  give  the  lie  to  the  New  Testament.  A 
,  short  instance  or  two  of  this  will  suffice  for  the  whole. 

They  make  Joseph  to  dream  of  an  angel,  who  informs  him 
that  Herod  is  dead,  and  tells  him  to  come  with  the  child  out  of 
Egypt.  They  then  cut  out  a  sentence  from  the  book  of  Hosca, 
"  Out  of  Egypt  have  I  called  my  Son"  and  spply  it  as  a  prophecy 
in  that  case. 

The  words  "  Jind  called  my  Son  out  of  Egjpt,"  arc  in  the  IJi- 
ble  ; — but  what  of  that?  They  are  only  part  of  a  passage,  and 


236  EXAMINATION    OF 

not  a  whole  passage,  and  stand  immediately  connected  with  oth- 
er words,  which  show  they  refer  to  the  children  of  Israel  coming 
out  of  Egypt  in  the  time  of  Pharaoh,  and  to  the  idolatry  they 
committed  afterwards. 

Again,  they  tell  us  that  when  the  soldiers  came  to  break  the 
legs  of  the  crucified  persons,  they  found  Jesus  was  already  dead, 
and  therefore  did  not  break  his.  They  then,  with  some  altera- 
tion of  the  original,  cut  out  a  sentence  from  Exodus,  "  a  bone  of 
him  shall  iwt  be  broken,"  and  apply  it  as  a  prophecy  of  that  case. 

The  words,  "  Neither  shall  ye  break  a  bone  thereof,"  (for  they 
have  altered  the  text)  are  in  the  Bible — but  what  of  that?  They 
are,  as  in  the  former  case,  only  part  of  a  passage,  and  not  a 
whole  passage,  and  when  read  with  the  words  they  are  immedi- 
ately joined  to,  show  it  is  the  bones  of  a  he-lamb  or  a  he-goat  of 
which  the  passage  speaks. 

These  repeated  forgeries  and  falsifications  create  a  well-found- 
ed suspicion,  that  all  the  cases  spoken  of  concerning  the  person 
called  Jesus  Christ  are  made  cases,  on  purpose  to  lug  in,  and  that 
very  clumsily,  some  broken  sentences  from  the  Old  Testament, 
and  apply  them  as  prophecies  of  those  cases  ;  and  that  so  far 
from  his  being  the  Son  of  God,  he  did  not  exist  even  as  a  man 
— that  he  is  merely  an  imaginary  or  allegorical  character,  as 
Apollo,  Hercules,  Jir  iter,  and  all  the  deities  of  antiquity  were. 
There  is  no  history  written  at  the  time  Jesus  Christ  is  said  to 
have  lived  that  speaks  of  the  existence  of  such  a  person,  even  as 
a  man. 

Did  we  find  in  any  other  book  pretending  to  give  a  system  of 
religion,  the  falsehoods,  falsifications,  contradictions,  and  absurd- 
ities, which  are  to  be  met  with  in  almost  every  page  of  the  Old  and 
New  Testament,  all  the  priests  of  the  present  day,  who  supposed 
themselves  capable,  would  triumphantly  show  their  skill  in  criti- 
cism, and  cry  it  down  as  a  most  glaring  imposition.  But  since 
the  books  in  question  belong  to  their  own  trade  and  profession, 
they,  or  at  least  many  of  them,  seek  to  stifle  every  inquiry  into 
them,  and  abuse  those  who  have  the  honesty  and  the  courage  to 
doit. 

When  a  book,  as  is  the  case  with  the  Old  and  New  Testament, 
is  ushered  into  the  world  under  the  title  of  being  the  WORD  OP 
GOD,  it  ought  to  be  examined  with  the  utmost  strictness,  in  order 
to  know  if  it  has  a  well  founded  claim  to  that  title  or  not,  and 
whether  we  are  or  are  not  imposed  upon  :  for  as  no  poison  is  so 
dangerous  as  that  which  poisons  the  physic,  so  no  falsehood  is  so 
fatal  as  that  which  is  made  an  article  of  faith. 

This  examination  becomes  more  necessary,  because  when  the 
New  Testament  was  written,  I  might  say  invented,  the  art  of 
printing  was  not  known,  and  there  were  no  other  copies  of  the 
Old  Testament  than  written  copies.  A  written  copy  of  that  book 
would  cost  about  as  much  as  six  hundred  common  printed  bibles 


THE    PROPHECIES, 


237 


now  cost.  -Consequently  was  in  the  hands  but  of  very  few  per- 
sons, and  these  chiefly  of  the  church.  This  gave  an  opportuni- 
ty to  the  writers  of  the  New  Testament  to  make  quotations  from 
the  Old  Testament  as  they  pleased,  and  call  them  prophecies, 
with  very  little  danger  of  being  detected.  Besides  which,  the 
terrors  and  inquisitorial  fury  of  the  church,  like  what  they  tell 
us  of  the  flaming  sword  that  turned  every  way,  stood  sentry  over 
the  New  Testament  ;  and  time,  which  brings  every  thing  else  to 
light,  has  served  to  thicken  the  darkness  that  guards  it  Irom  de- 
tection. 

Were  the  New  Testament  now  to  appear  for  the  first  time,  cv- 
•ery  priest  of  the  present  day  would  examine  it  line  by  line,  and 
compare  the  detached  sentences  it  calls  prophecies  with  the  whole 
passages  in  the  Old  Testament  from  whence  they  are  taken. 
Why  then  do  they  not  make  the  same  examination  at  this  time, 
as  they  would  make  had  the  New  Testament  never  appeared  be- 
fore ?  If  it  be  proper  and  right  to  malic  it  in  one  case,  it  is  equal- 
ly proper  and  right  to  do  it  in  the  other  case.  Length  of  time 
can  make  no  difference  in  the  right  to  do  it  at  any  time.  But  in- 
stead of  doing  this,  they  go  on  as  their  predecessors  went  on  be- 
fore them,  to  tell  the  people  there  are  prophecies  of  Jesus  Christ, 
when  the  truth  is  there  are  none. 

They  tell  us  that  Jesus  rose  from  the  dead,  and  ascended  into 
heaven.  It  is  very  easy  to  say  so  ;  a  great  lie  is  as  easily  told 
as  a  little  one.  But  if  he  had  done  so,  those  would  have  been 
the  only  circumstances  respecting  him  that  would  have  differed 
from  the  common  lot  of  man  ;  and  consequently  the  only  case 
that  would  apply  exclusively  to  him,  as  prophecy,  would  be  some 
passage  in  the  Old  Testament  that  foretold  such  things  of  him. 
But  there  is  not  a  passage  in  the  Old  Testament  that  speaks  of 
a  person,  who,  after  being  crucified,  dead,  and  buried,  should  rise 
from  the  dead,  and  ascend  into  heaven.  Our  prophecy-mongers 
supply  the  silence  the  Old  Testament  guards  upon  such  things, 
by  telling  us  of  passages  they  call  prophecies,  and  that  falsely  so, 
about  Joseph's  dream,  old  clothes,  broken  bones,  and  such  like 
trifling  stuff. 

In  writing  upon  this,  as  upon  every  other  subject,  I  speak  a 
language  full  and  intelligible.  I  deal  not  in  hints  and  intimations. 
I  have  several  reasons  for  this  :  First,  that  I  mny  be  clearly  un- 
derstood. Secondly,  that  it  may  be  seen  I  am  in  earnest.  And 
thirdly,  because  it  is  an  affront  to  truth  to  treat  falsehood  with 
complaisance. 

1  will  close  this  treatise  with  a  subject  I  have  already  touched 
upon  in  the  First  Part  of  the  Jlge  of  Reason. 

The  world  has  been  amused  with  the  term  revealed  religion, 
and  the  generality  of  priests  apply  this  term  to  the  books  called 
the  Old  and  New  Testament.  The  Mahometans  apply  the  same 
term  to  the  Koran.  There  is  no  man  that  believes  in  revealed 


'238  EXAMINATION    OF 

religion  stronger  than  I  do  ;  but  it  is  not  the  reveries  of  the  Old 
and  New  Testament,  nor  of  the  Koran,  that  I  dignify  with  that 
sacred  title.  That  which  is  revelation  to  me,  exists  in  something 
which  no  human  mind  can  invent,  no  human  hand  can  counterfeit 
or  alter. 

The  Word  of  God  is  the  Creation  we  behold ;  and  this  word 
of  God  revealeth  to  man  all  that  is  necessary  for  man  to  know 
of  his  Creator. 

Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  power?  We  see  it  in  the  im- 
mensity of  his  creation. 

Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  wisdom?  We  see  it  in  the  un- 
changeable order  by  which  the  incomprehensible  whole  is  gov- 
erned. 

Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  munificence?  We  see  it  in  the 
abundance  with  which  he  fills  the  earth. 

Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  mercy?  We  see  it  in  his  not 
withholding  that  abundance,  even  from  the  unthankful. 

Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  will,  so  far  as  it  respects  man? 
The  goodness  he  shows  to  all,  is  a  lesson  for  our  conduct  to  each 
other. 

In  fine — Do  we  want  to  know  what  God  is?  Search  not  the 
book  called  the  Scripture,  which  any  human  hand  might  make,  or 
any  impostor  invent  ;  .but  the  scripture  called  the  Creation. 

When,  in  the  first  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  I  called  the 
Creation  the  true  revelation  of  God  to  man,  I  did  not  know  that 
any  other  person  had  expressed  the  same  idea.  But  I  lately  met 
with  the  writings  of  Doctor  Conyers  Middleton,  published  the 
beginning  of  last  century,  in  which  he  expresses  himself  in  the 
same  manner  with  respect  to  the  creation,  us  I  have  done  in  the 
Age  of  Reason. 

He  was  principal  librarian  of  the  University  of  Cambridge,  in 
England,  which  furnished  him  with  extensive  opportunities  of 
reading,  and  necessarily  required  he  should  be  well  acquainted 
with  the  dead  as  well  as  the  living  languages.  He  was  a  man 
of  a  strong  original  mind  ;  had  the  courage  to  think  for  himself, 
and  the  honesty  to  speak  his  thoughts. 

He  made  a  journey  to  Rome,  from  whence  he  wrote  letters  to 
show  that  the  forms  .and  ceremonies  of  the  Romish  Christian 
Church  were  taken  from  the  degenerate  state  of  the  heathen  my- 
thology, as  it  stood  in  the  latter  times  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans. 
He  attacked  without  ceremony  the  miracles  which  the  church 
pretend  to  perform  ;  and  in  one  of  his  treatises,  he  calls  the  cre- 
ation a  revelation.  The  priests  of  England  of  that  day,  in  order 
to  defend  their  citadel  by  first  defending  its  out-works,  attacked 
him  for  attacking  the  Roman  ceremonies  ;  and  one  of  them  cen- 
sures him  for  calling  the  creation  a  revelation — he  thus  replies  to 
him  : 

"  One  of  them,"  says  he,  "  appears  to  be  scandalized  by  the 


THE    FROF1IECIES  239 

title  of  revelation,  which  I  have  given  to  that  discovery  which 
God  macle  of  himself  in  the  visible  works  of  his  creation.  Yet 
it  is  no  other  than  what  the  wise  in  all  ages  have  given  to  it,  who 
consider  it  as  the  most  authentic  and  indisputable  revelation 
which  God  has  ever  given  of  himself,  from  the  beginning  of  the 
world  to  this  day.  It  was  this  by  which  the  first  notice  of  him 
was  revealed  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  earth,  and  by  which  alone 
it  has  been  kept  up  ever  since  among  the  several  nations  of  it. 
From  thus  the  reason  of  man  was  enabled  to  trace  out  his  nature 
and  attributes,  and  by  a  gradual  deduction  of  consequences,  to 
learn  his  own  nature  also,  with  all  the  duties  belonging  to  it  which 
relate  either  to  God  or  to  his  fello\v-creuturcs.  This  constitu- 
tion of  things  was  ordained  by  God,  as  an  universal  law  or  rule 
of  conduct  to  man — the  source  of  all  his  knowledge — the  test 
of  all  truth,  by  which  all  subsequent  revelations,  which  are  sup- 
posed to  have  been  given  by  God  in  any  other  manner,  must  be 
tried,  and  cannot  be  received  as  divine  any  further  than  as  they 
are  found  to  tally  and  coincide  with  this  original  standard. 

"  It  was  this  divine  law  which  I  referred  to  in  the  passage  above 
recited  (meaning  the  passage  on  which  they  had  attacked  him) 
being  desirous  to  excite  the  reader's  attention  to  it,  as  it  would 
enable  him  to  judge  more  freely  of  the  argument  I  was  handling. 
For  by  contemplating  this  law,  he  would  discover  the  genuine 
way  which  God  himself  has  marked  out  to  us  for  the  acquisition  of 
true  knowledge  ;  not  from  the  authority  or  reports  of  our  fellow- 
creatures,  but  from  the  information  of  the  facts  and  material  ob- 
jects which  in  his  providential'distribution  of  worldly  things,  he 
hath  presented  to  the  perpetual  observation  of  our  senses.  For 
as  it  was  from  these  that  his  existence  and  nature,  the  most  im- 
portant articles  of  all  knowledge,  were  first  discovered  to  man, 
so  that  grand  discovery  furnished  new  light  towards  tracing  out 
the  rest,  and  made  all  the  inferior  subjects  of  human  knowledge 
more  easily  discoverable  to  us  by  the  same  method. 

"  I  had  another  view  likewise  in  the  same  passages,  and  ap- 
plicable to  the  same  end,  of  giving  the  reader  a  more  enlarged 
notion  of  the  question  in  dispute,  who,  by  turning  his  thoughts  to 
reflect  on  the  works  of  the  Creator,  as  they  are  manifested  to  us 
in  this  fabric  of  the  world,  could  not  failto'observc,  that  they  aro 
all  of  them  great,  noble,  and  suitable  to  the  majesty  of  his  na- 
ture, carrying  with  them  the  proofs  of  their  origin,  and  showing 
themselves  to  be  the  production  of  an  all-wise  and  Almighty  be- 
ing ;  and  by  accustoming  his  mind  to  these  sublime  reflections, 
he  will  be  prepared  to  determine,  whether  those  miraculous  in- 
terpositions so  confidently  affirmed  to  us  by  the  primitive  fathers, 
can  reasonably  be  thought  to  make  a  part  in  the  grand  scheme 
of  the  divine  administration,  or  whether  it  be  agreeable  that  God, 
who  created  all  things  by  his  will,  and  can  give  what  turn  to 
them  he  pleases  by  the  same  will,  should",  for  the  particular  pur 


240  EXAMINATION    OF 

poses  of  hi£  government  ana  the  services  of  the  church,  descend 
to  4hc  expedient  of  visions  and  revelations,  granted  sometimes  to 
boys  for  the  instruction  of  the  elders,  and  sometimes  to  women 
to  settle  the  fashion  and  length  of  their  veils,  and  sometimes  to 
pastors  of  the  Church,  to  enjoin  them  to  ordain  one  man  a  lec- 
turer, another  a  priest  ; — or  that  he  should  scatter  a  profusion  of 
miracles  around  the  stake  of  a  martyr,  yet  all  of  them  vain  and 
insignificant,  and  without  any  sensible  effect,  either  of  preserv- 
ing the  life,  or  easing  the  sufferings  of  the  saint  ;  or^even  of 
mortifying  his  persecutors,  who  were  always  left  to  enjoy  the  full 
triumph  of  their  cruelty,  and  the  poor  martyr  to  expire  in  a  mis- 
erable death.  When  these  things,  I  say,  are  brought  to  the  orig- 
inal test,  and  compared  with  the  genuine  and  indisputable  vorks 
of  the  Creator,  how  minute,  how  trifling,  how  contemptible  must 
they  be? — and  how  incredible  must  it  be  thought,  that  for  the  in- 
struction of  his  church,  God  should  employ  ministers  so  preca- 
rious, unsatisfactory,  and  inadequate,  as  the  extasies  of  women 
and  boys,  and  the  visions  of  interested  priests,  which  were  de- 
rided at  the  very  time  by  men  of  sense  to  whom  they  were  pro- 
posed. 

"  That  this  universal  law  (continues  Middleton,  meaning  the 
law  revealed  in  the  works  of  the  creation)  was  actually  revealed 
to  the  heathen  world  long  before  the  gospel  was  known,  we  learn 
from  all  the  principal  sages  of  antiquity,  who  made  it  the  capital 
subject  of  their  studies  and  writings. 

"  Cicero  has  given  us  a  short  abstract  of  it  in  a  fragment  still 
remaining  from  one  of  his  books  on  government,  which  I  shall 
here  transcribe  in  his  own  words,  as  they  will  illustrate  my  sense 
also,  in  the  passages  that  appear  so  dark  and  dangerous  to  my 
antagonists." 

"  The  true  law  (says  Cicero,)  is  right  reason  conformable  to 
the  "nature  of  things,  constant,  eternal,  diffused  through  all,  which 
calls  us  to  duty  by  commanding — deters  us  from  sin  by  forbidding  ; 
which  never  loses  its  influence  with  the  good,  nor  ever  preserves 
it  with  the  wicked.  This  law  cannot  be  over-ruled  by  any  oth- 
er, nor  abrogated  in  whole  or  in  part ;  nor  can  we  be  absolved 
from  it  either  by  the  senate  or  by  the  people  ;  nor  are  we  to  seek 
any  other  comment  or  interpreter  of  it  but  itself;  nor  can  there 
be  one  law  at  Rome  and  another  at  Athens — one  now  and  anoth- 
er hereafter  ;  but  the  same  eternal  immutable  law  comprehends 
all  nations  at  all  times,  under  one  common  master  and  governor 
of  all — GOD.  He  is  the  inventor,  propounder,  enacter  of  this 
law  ;  and  whoever  will  not  obey  it  must  first  renounce  himself 
and  throw  off  the  nature  of  man  ;  by  doing  which,  he  will  suffer 
the  greatest  punishments,  though  he  should  escape  all  the  other 
torments  which  are  commonly  believed  to  be  prepared  for  the 
wicked."  Here  ends  the  quotation  from  Cicero. 

"  Our  Doctors  (continues  Middieton)  perhaps  will  look  on  this 


THE    PROPHECIES.  241 

RANK  DEISM  ;  but  let  them  call  it  what  they  will,  I  shall  ever 
ivow  and  defend  it  as  the  fundamental,  essential,  and  vital  part 

all  true  religion."    Here  ends  the  quotation  from  Middleton. 

I  have  here  given  the  reader  two  sublime  extracts  from  men 
rho  lived  in  ages  of  time  far  remote  from  each  other,  but  who 
thought  alike,  Cicero  lived  before  the  time  in  which  they  tell  us 
Christ  was  born.  Middleton  may  be  called  a  man  of  our  own 
time,  as  he  lived  within  the  same  century  with  ourselves. 

In  Cicero  we  see  that  vast  superiority  of  mind,  that  sublimity 
of  right  reasoning  and  justness  of  ideas  which  man  acquires,  not 
by  studying  Bibles  and  Testaments,  and  the  theology  of  schools, 
built  thereon,  but  by  studying  the  Creator  in  the  immensity  and 
unchangeable  order  of  his  creation,  and  the  immutability  of  his 
law.  "  There  cannot,"  says  Cicero,  "  be  one  law  now,  and  anoth- 
er hereafter  ;  but  the  same  eternal  immutable  law  comprehends  all 
nations,  at  all  times,  under  one  common  master  and  governor  of  all 
— GOD."  But  according  to  the  doctrine  of  schools  which  priests 
have  set  up,  we  see  one  law,  called  the  Old  Testament,  given  in 
one  age  of  the  world,  and  another  law,  called  the  New  Testa- 
ment, given  in  another  age  of  the  world.  As  all  this  is  contra- 
dictory to  the  eternal  immutable  nature,  and  the  unerring  and 
unchangeable  wisdom  of  God,  we  must  be  compelled  to  hold 
this  doctrine  to  be  false,  and  the  old  and  the  new  law,  called  the 
Old  and  the  New  Testament,  to  be  impositions,  fables,  and  for- 
geries. 

In  Middleton,  we  see  the  manly  eloquence  of  an  enlarged  mind, 
and  the  genuine  sentiments  of  a  true  believer  in  his  Creator. 
Instead  of  reposing  his  faith  on  books,  by  whatever  name  they 
may  be  called,  whether  Old  Testament  or  New,  he  fixes  the  cre- 
ation as  the  great  original  standard  by  which  every  other  thing 
called  the  word,  or  work  of  God,  is  to  be  tried.  In  this  we  have 
an  indisputable  scale,  whereby  to  measure  every  word  or  work 
imputed  to  him.  If  the  thing  so  imputed  carries  not  in  itself  the 
evidence  of  the  same  Almightiness  of  power,  of  the  same  uner- 
ring truth  and  wisdom,  and  the  same  unchangeable  order  in  all 
its  parts,  as  are  visibly  demonstrated  to  our  senses,  and  compre- 
hensible by  our  reason,  in  the  magnificent  fabric  of  the  universe, 
that  word  or  that  work  is  not  of  God.  Let  then  the  two  books 
called  the  Old  and  New  Testament  be  tried  by  this  rule,  and  the 
result  will  be,  that  the  authors  of  them,  whoever  they  were,  will 
be  convicted  of  forgery. 

The  invariable  principles,  and  unchangeable  order,  which  reg- 
ulate the  movements  of  all  the  parts  that  compose  the  universe, 
demonstrate  both  to  our  senses  and  our  reason  that  its  creator  is 
a  God  of  unerring  truth.  But  the  Old  Testament,  besides  the 
numberless,  absurd,  and  bagatelle  stories  it  tells  of  God,  repre- 
sents him  as  a  God  of  deceit,  a  God  not  to  be  confided  in.  Eze- 
kiel  makes  God  to  say,  chap.  14,  ver.  9,  "  And  if  the  prophet  be 
21 


242  EXAMINATION   OF 

deceived  wnen  he  hath  spoken  a  thing,  I,  the  Lord  have  deceived 
that  prophet."  And  at  the  20th  chap.  ver.  25,  he  makes  God,  in 
speaking  of  the  children  of  Israel  to  say,  "  Wherefore  I  gave 
them  statutes  that  were  not  goodj  and  judgments  by  which  they  could 
not  live" 

This,  so  far  from  being  the  word  of  God,  is  horrid  blasphemy 
against  him.  Reader,  put  thy  confidence  in  thy  God,  and  put  no 
trust  in  the  Bible. 

The  same  Old  Testament,  after  telling  us  that  God  created  the 
heavens  and  the  earth  in  six  days,  makes  the  same  almighty  pow- 
er and  eternal  wisdom  employ  itself  in  giving  directions  how  a 
priest's  garments  should  be  cut,  and  Avhat  sort  of  stuff  they  should 
be  made  of,  and  what  their  offerings  should  be,  gold,  and  silver, 
and  brass,  and  blue,  and  purple,  and  scarlet,  and  fine  linen,  and 
goats  hair,  and  rams'  skins  dyed  red,  and  badger  skins,  &c.  chap. 
xxv.  ver.  3  ;  and  in  one  of  the  pretended  prophecies  I  have  just 
examined,  God  is  made  to  give  directions  how  they  should  kill, 
cook,  and  eat  a  he-lamb  or  a  he-goat.  And  Ezekiel,  chap.  iv.  to 
fill  up  tha  measure  of  abominable  absurdity,  makes  God  to  order 
him  to  take  "wheat,  and  barley,  and  beans,  and  Untiles,  and  milletj 
and  fitches,  and  make  a  loaf  or  a  cake  thereof,  and  bake  it  with  hu- 
man dung  and  eat  it j"  but  as  Ezekiel  complained  that  this  mess 
was  too  strong  for  his  stomach,  the  matter  was  compromised  from 
man's  dung  to  cow  dung,  Ezekiel,  chap.  iv.  Compare  all  this 
ribaldry,  blasphemously  called  the  word  of  God,  with  the  Al- 
mighty power  that  created  the  universe,  and  whose  eternal  wis- 
dom directs  and  governs  all  its  mighty  movements,  and  we  shall 
be  at  a  loss  to  find  a  name  sufficiently  contemptible  for  it. 

In  the  promises  which  the  Old  Testament  pretends  that  God 
made  to  his  people,  the  same  derogatory  ideas  of  him  prevail.  It 
makes  God  to  promise  to  Abraham,  that  his  seed  should  be  like 
the  stars  in  heaven  and  the  sand  on  the  sea  shore  for  multitude, 
and  that  he  would  give  them  the  land  of  Canaan  as  their  inherit- 
ance for  ever.  But  observe,  reader,  how  the  performance  of  this 
promise  was  to  begin,  and  then  ask  thine  own  reason,  if  the  wis- 
dom of  God,  whose  power  is  equal  to  his  will,  could,  consistently 
with  that  power  and  that  wisdom,  make  such  a  promise. 

The  performance  of  the  promise  was  to  begin,  according  to  that 
book,  by  four  hundred  years  of  bondage  and  affliction.  Genesis, 
chap.  xv.  ver.  13,  "And  God  said  unto  Abraham,  know  of  a  surety, 
that  thy  seed  shall  be  a  stranger  in  a  land  that  is  not  theirs,  and 
shall  serve  them,  and  they  shall  afflict  them  four  hundred  years." 
This  promise  then  to  Abraham,  and  his  seed  for  ever,  to  inherit 
the  land  of  Canaan,  had  it  been  a  fact  instead  of  a  fable,  was  to 
operate,  in  the  commencement  of  it,  as  a  curse  upon  all  the  peo- 
ple and  their  children,  and  their  children's  children  for  four  hun- 
dred years. 


THE    PROPHECIES.  243 

But  the  case  is,  the  book  of  Genesis  was  written  after  the  bond- 
age in  Egypt  had  taken  place  ;  and  in  order  to  get  rid  of  the  dis- 
grace of  the  Lord's  chosen  people,  as  they  called  themselves,  be- 
ing in  bondage  to  the  Gentiles,  they  make  God  to  be  the  author 
of  it,  and  annex  it  as  a  condition  to  a  pretended  promise  ;  as  if 
God,  in  making  that  promise,  had  exceeded  his  power  in  perform- 
ing it,  and  consequently  his  wisdom  in  making  it,  and  was  obliged 
to  compromise  with  them  for  one  half,  and  with  the  Egyptians,  to 
whom  they  were  to  be  in  bondage,  for  the  other  half. 

Without  degrading  my  own  reason  by  bringing  those  wretched 
and  contemptible  tales  into  a  comparative  view,  with  the  Almighty 
power  and  eternal  wisdom,  which  the  Creator  hath  demonstrated 
to  our  senses  in  the  creation  of  the  universe,  I  will  confine  myself 
to  say,  that  if  we  compare  them  with  the  divine  and  forcible  senti- 
ments of  Cicero,  the  result  will  be,  that  the  human  mind  has  de- 
generated by  believing  them.  Man  in  a  state  of  grovelling  super- 
stition, from  which  he  has  not  courage  to  rise,  looses  the  energy 
of  his  mental  powers. 

I  will  not  tire  the  reader  with  more  observations  on  the  Old 
Testament. 

As  to  the  New  Testament,  if  it  be  brought  and  tried  by  that 
standard,  which,  as  Middleton  wisely  says,  God  has  revealed  to 
our  senses,  of  his  Almighty  power  and  wisdom  in  the  creation  and 
government  of  the  visible  universe,  it  will  be  found  equally  as 
false,  paltry,  and  absurd,  as  the  Old. 

Without  entering,  in  this  place,  into  any  other  argument,  that 
the  story  of  Christ  is  of  human  invention,  and  not  of  divine  origin, 
I  will  confine  myself  to  show  that  it  is  derogatory  to  God,  by  the 
contrivance  of  it :  because  the  means  it  supposes  God  to  use,  are 
not  adequate  to  the  end  to  be  obtained  5  and  therefore  are  derog- 
atory to  the  Almightiness  of  his  power,  and  the  eternity  of  his 
wisdom. 

The  New  Testament  supposes  that  God  sent  his  Son  upon 
earth  to  make  a  new  covenant  with  man  ;  which  the  church  calls 
the  covenant  of  Grace,  and  to  instruct  mankind  in  a  new  doctrine, 
which  it  calls  Faith,  meaning  thereby,  not  faith  in  God,  for  Cicero 
and  all  true  Deists  always  had  and  always  will  have  this  ;  but 
faith  in  the  person  called  Jesus  Christ,  and  that  whoever  had  not 
this  faith  should,  to  use  the  words  of  the  New  Testament,  be 
DAMNED. 

Now,  if  this  were  a  fact,  it  is  consistent  with  that  attribute  of 
God,  called  his  Goodness,  that  no  time  should  be  lost  in  letting 
poor  unfortunate  man  know  it ;  and  as  that  goodness  was  united  to 
Almighty  power,  and  that  power  to  Almighty  wisdom,  all  the  means 
existed  in  the  hand  of  the  Creator  to  make  it  known  immediately 
over  the  whole  earth,  in  a  manner  suitable  to  the  Almightiness  of 
his  divine  nature,  and  with  evidence  that  would  not  leave  man  in 
doubt ;  for  it  is  always  incumbent  upon  us,  in  all  cases,  to  believe 


244  EXAMINATION    OF 

that  the  Almighty  always  acts,  not  by  imperfect  means  as  imper- 
fect man  acts,  but  consistently  with  his  Almightiness.  It  is  this 
only  that  can  become  the  infallible  criterion  by  which  we  can  pos- 
sibly distinguish  the  works  of  God  from  the  works  of  man. 

Observe  now,  reader,  how  the  comparison  between  the  sup- 
posed mission  of  Christ,  on  the  belief  or  disbelief  of  which  they 
say  man  was  to  be  saved  or  damned — observe,  I  say,  how  the 
comparison  between  this  and  the  Almighty  power  and  wisdom 
of  God  demonstrated  to  our  senses  in  the  visible  creation,  goes 
on. 

The  Old  Testament  tells  us  that  God  created  the  heavens  and 
the  earth,  and  every  thing  therein,  in  six  days.  The  term  six 
days  is  ridiculous  enough  when  applied  to  God  ;  but  leaving  out 
that  absurdity,  it  contains  the  idea  of  Almighty  power  acting 
unitedly  with  Almighty  wisdom,  to  produce  an  immense  worfe$ 
that  of  the  creation  of  the  universe  and  every  thing  therein,  in  a 
short  time. 

Now  as  the  eternal  salvation  of  a  man  is  of  much  greater  im- 
portance than  his  creation,  and  as  that  salvation  depends,  as  the 
New  Testament  tells  us,  on  man's  knowledge  of,  and  belief  in 
the  person  called  Jesus  Christ,  it  necessarily  follows  from  our 
belief  in  the  goodness  and  justice  of  God,  and  our  knowledge  of 
his  almighty  power  and  wisdom,  as  demonstrated  in  the  creation, 
that  ALL  THIS,  if  true,  would  be  made  known  to  all  parts  of  the 
world,  in  as  little  time,  at  least,  as  was  employed  in  making  the 
world.  To  suppose  the  Almighty  would  pay  greater  regard  and 
attention  to  the  creation  and  organization  of  inanimate  matter, 
than  he  would  to  the  salvation  of  innumerable  millions  of  souls, 
which  himself  had  created,  "  as  the  image  of  himself,"  is  to  offer 
an  insult  to  his  goodness  and  his  justice. 

Now  observe,  reader,  how  the  promulgation  of  this  pretended 
salvation  by  a  knowledge  of,  and  a  belief  in  Jesus  Christ  went 
on,  compared  with  the  work  of  creation. 

In  the  first  place,  it  took  longer  time  to  make  a  child  than  to 
make  the  world,  for  nine  months  were  passed  away  and  totally 
lost  in  a  state  of  pregnancy  ;  which  is  more  than  forty  times 
longer  time  than  God  employed  in  making  the  world,  according 
to  the  Bible  account.  Secondly  ;  several  years  of  Chrtst's  life 
were  lost  in  a  state  of  human  infancy.  But  the  universe  was 
in  maturity  the  moment  it  existed.  Thirdly  ;  Christ,  as  Luke 
asserts,  was  thirty  years  old  before  he  began  to  preach  what  they 
call  his  mission.  Millions  of  souls  died  in  the  mean  time  with- 
out knowing  it.  Fourthly  ;  it  was  above  three  hundred  years 
from  that  time  before  the  book  called  the  New  Testament  was 
compiled  into  a  written  copy,  before  which  time  there  was  no 
such  book.  Fifthly  ;  it  was  above  a  thousand  years  after  that, 
before  it  could  be  circulated  ;  because  neither  Jesus  nor  his 
apostles  had  knowledge  of,  or  were  inspired  with  the  art  of  print- 


THE   PROPHECIES.  245 

ing  :  and  consequently,  as  the  means  for  making  it  universally 
known  did  not  exist,  the  means  were  not  equal  to  the  end,  and 
therefore  it  is  not  the  work  of  God. 

I  will  here  subjoin  the  nineteenth  Psalm,  which  is  truly  deist- 
ical,  to  show  how  universally  and  instantaneously  the  works  of 
God  make  themselves  known,  compared  with  this  pretended  sal- 
vation by  Jesus  Christ. 

Psalm  19th.  "  The  heavens  declare  the  glory  of  God,  and 
the  firmament  showeth  his  handy  work — Day  unto  day  uttereth 
speech,  and  night  unto  night  showeth  knowledge — There  is  no 
speech  nor  language  where  their  voice  is  not  heard — Their  line 
is  gone  out  through  all  the  earth,  and  their  words  to  the  end  of 
the  world.  In  them  hath  he  set  a  chamber  for  the  Sun.  Which 
is  as  a  bridegroom  coming  out  of  his  chamber,  and  xejoiceth  as 
a  strong  man  to  run  a  race — his  going  forth  is  from  the  end  of 
the  heaven,  and  his  circuit  unto  the  ends  of  it,  and  there  is  noth- 
ing hid  from  the  heat  thereof." 

Now,  had  the  news  of  salvation  by  Jesus  Christ  been  inscrib- 
ed on  the  face  of  the  Sun  and  the  Moon,  in  characters  that  all 
nations  would  have  understood,  the  whole  earth  had  known  it  in 
twenty-four  hours,  and  all  nations  would  have  believed  it  ;  where- 
as though  it  is  now  almost  two  thousand  years  since,  as  they  tell 
us,  Christ  came  upon  earth,  not  a  twentieth  part  of  the  people  of 
the  earth  know  any  thing  of  it,  and  among  those  who  do,  the 
wiser  part  do  not  believe  it. 

I  have  now  reader  gone  through  all  the  passages  called  proph- 
ecies of  Jesus  Christ,  and  shown  there  is  no  such  thing. 

I  have  examined  the  story  told  of  Jesus  Christ,  and  compared 
the  several  circumstances  of  it  with  that  revelation,  which,  as 
Middleton  wisely  says,  God  has  made  to  us  of  his  Power  and 
Wisdom  in  the  structure  of  the  universe,  and  by  which  every 
thing  ascribed  to  him  is  to  be  tried.  The  result  is,  that  the  story 
of  Christ  has  not  one  trait,  either  in  its  character,  or  in  the  means 
employed,  that  bears  the  least  resemblance  to  the  power  and 
wisdom  of  God,  as  demonstrated  in  the  creation  of  the  universe. 
All  the  means  are  human  means,  slow,  uncertain  and  inadequate 
to  the  accomplishment  of  the  end  proposed,  and  therefore  the 
whole  is  a  fabulous  invention,  and  undeserving  of  credit. 

The  priests  of  the  present  day  profess  to  believe  it.  They 
gain  their  living  by  it,  and  they  exclaim  against  something  they 
call  infidelity.  I  will  define  what  it  is.  HE  THAT  BELIEVES  IN 

THE  STORY  OF  CHRIST    IS  AN  INFIDEL  TO  GOD. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 


APPENDIX. 

CONTRADICTORY  DOCTRINES  IN  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT 

BETWEEN 

MATTHEW  AND  MARK. 


In  the  New  Testament,  Mark,  chap.  xvi.  ver.  16,  it  is  said, 
"  He  that  believeth  and  is  baptised  shall  be  saved  ;  he  that  be- 
lieveth  not  shall  be  damned."  This  is  making  salvation,  or  in 
other  words,  the  happiness  of  man  after  this  life,  to  depend  en- 
tirejy  on  believing,  or  on  what  Christians  call  faith. 

But  the  25th  chapter  of  The  Gospel  according  io  Matthew 
makes  Jesus  Christ,to  preach  a  direct  contrary  doctrine  to  The 
Gospel  according  to  Mark  ;  for  it  makes  salvation,  or  the  future 
happiness  of  man,  to  depend  entirely  on  good  works  ;  and  those 
good  works  are  not  works  done  to  God,  for  he  needs  them  not, 
but  good  works  done  to  man. 

The  passage  referred  to  in  Matthew  is  the  account  there  giv- 
en of  what  is  called  the  last  day,  or  the  day  of  judgment,  where 
the  whole  world  is  represented  to  be  divided  into  two  parts,  the 
righteous  and  the  unrighteous,  metaphorically  called  the  sheep 
and  the  goats. 

To  the  one  part  called  the  righteous,  or  the  sheep,  it  &ays,' 
"  Come  ye  blessed  of  my  father,  inherit  the  kingdom  prepared 
for  you  from  the  beginning  of  the  world — for  I  was  an  hungered 
and  ye  gave  me  meat — I  was  thirsty  and  ye  gave  me  drink — I 
was  a  stranger  and  ye  took  me  in — Naked  and  ye  clothed  me — 
I  was  sick  and  ye  visited  me — I  was  in  prison  and  ye  came  unto 
me. 

"  Then  shall  the  righteous  answer  him,  saying,  Lord,  when 
saw;  we  thee  an  hungered  and  fed  thee,  or  thirsty  and  gave  thee 
dripk?  When  saw  we  thee  a  stranger  and  took  thee  in,  or  naked 
and  clothed  thee?  Or  when  saw  we  thee  sick  and  in  prison,  and 
came  unto  thee  ? 

"  And  the  king  shall  answer  and  say  unto  them,  verily  I  say 
unto  you,  in  as  much  as  ye  have  done  it  unto  one  of  the  least  of  these 
my  brethren,  yc  have  done  it  unio  me." 

Here  is  nothing  about  believing  in  Christ — nothing  about  that 
phantom  of  the  imagination  called  Faith.  The  works  here  spo- 
ken of,  are  works  of  humanity  and  benevolence,  or,  in  other 
words,  an  endeavour  to  make  God's  creation  happy.  Here  is 
nothing  about  preaching  and  making  long  prayers,  as  if  Goo. 


S48  APPENDIX. 

must  be  dictated  to  by  man  ;  nor  about  building  churches  and 
meetings,  nor  hiring  priests  to  pray  and  preach  in  them.  Here 
is  nothing  about  predestination,  that  lust  which  some  men  have 
for  damning  one  another.  Here  is  nothing  about  baptism, 
whether  by  sprinkling  or  plunging,  nor  about  any  of  those  cere- 
monies for  which  the  Christian  church  has  been  fighting,  perse- 
cuting, and  burning  each  other,  ever  since  the  Christian  church 
began. 

If  it  be  asked,  why  do  not  priests  preach  the  doctrine  contain- 
ed in  this  chapter  ?  The  answer  is  easy  ; — they  are  not  fond  of 
practising  it  themselves.  It  does  not  answer  for  their  trade. 
They  had  rather  get  than  give.  Charity  with  them  begins  and 
ends  at  'home. 

Had  it  been  said,  Come  ye  blessed,  ye  have  been  liberal  in  pay- 
ing the  preachers  of  the  word,  ye  have  contributed  largely  towards 
building  churches  and  meeting-houses,  there  is  not  a  hired  priest 
in  Christendom  but  would  have  thundered  it  continually  in  the 
ears  of  his  congregation.  But  as  it  is  altogether  on  good  works 
done  to  men,  the  priests  pass  over  it  in  silence,  and  they  will 
abuse  me  for  bringing  it  into  notice. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 


MY 

PRIVATE   THOUGHTS 

ON   A 

FUTURE  STATE. 


I  HAVE  said  in  the  first  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  that  "jf 
hope  for  happiness  after  this  life."  This  hope  is  comfortable  to 
me,  and  I  presume  not  to  go  beyond  the  comfortable  idea  of 
hope,  with  respect  to  a  future  state. 

I  consider  myself  in  the  hands  of  my  Creator,  and  that  he 
will  dispose  of  me  after  this  life,  consistently  with  his  justice  and 
goodness.  I  leave  all  these  matters  to  him  as  my  Creator  and 
friend,  and  I  hold  it  to  be  presumption  in  man  to  make  an  arti- 
cle of  faith  as  to  what  the  Creator  will  do  with  us  hereafter. 

I  do  not  believe  because  a  man  and  a  woman  make  a  child, 
that  it  imposes  on  the  Creator  the  unavoidable  obligation  of 
keeping  the  being  so  made  in  eternal  existence  hereafter.  It  is 
in  his  power  to  do  so,  or  not  to  do  so,  and  it  is  not  in  our  power 
to  decide  which  he  will  do. 

The  book  called  the  New  Testament,  which  I  hold  to  be  fab- 
ulous, and  have  shown  to  be  false,  gives  an  account  in  the  25th 
chapter  of  Matthew,  of  what  is  there  called  the  last  day,  or  the 
day  of  judgment.  The  whole  world,  according  to  that  account, 
is  divided  into  two  parts,  the  righteous  and  the  unrighteous,  figu- 
ratively called  the  sheep  and  the  goats.  They  are  then  to  receive 
their  sentence.  To  the  one,  figuratively  called  the  sheep,  it 
says,  "  Come  ye  blessed  of  my  Father,  inherit  the  kingdom  pre- 
pared for  you  from  the  foundation  of  the  world. "  To  the  other> 
figuratively  called  the  goats,  it  says,  "  Depart  from  me,  ye  curs- 
ed, into  everlasting  fire,  prepared  for  the  devil  and  his  angels." 

Now  the  case  is,  the  world  cannot  be  thus  divided — the  moral 
world,  like  the  physical  world,  is  composed  of  numerous  degrees 
of  character,  running  imperceptibly  one  into  the  other,  in  such 
a  manner  that  no  fixed  point  of  division  can  be  found  in  either. 
That  point  is  no  where,  or  is  every  where.  The  whole  world 
might  be  divided  into  two  parts  numerically,  but  not  as  to  moral 
character  ;  and  therefore  the  metaphor  of  dividing  them,  as 
sheep  and  goats  can  be  divided,  whose  difference  is  marked  by 
their  external  figure,  is  absurd.  All  sheep  are  still  sheep  ;  all 
goats  are  still  goats;  it  is  their  physical  nature  to  be  so.  But 
one  part  of  the  world  are  not  all  good  alike,  nor  the  other  part 


250  APPENDIX. 

all  wicked  alike.  There  are  some  exceedingly  good  ;  others  ex- 
ceedingly wicked.  There  is  another  description  of  men  who 
cannot  be  ranked  with  either  the  one  or  the  other — they  belong 
neither  to  the  sheep  nor  the  goats. 

My  own  opinion  is,  that  those  whose  lives  have  been  spent  in 
doing  good,  and  endeavouring  to  make  their  fellow-mortals  hap- 
py, for  this  is  the  only  way  in  which  we  can  serve  God,  will  be 
happy  hereafter  ;  and  that  the  very  wicked  will  meet  with  some 
punishment.  This  is  my  opinion.  It  is  consistent  with  my  idea 
of  God's  justice,  and  with  the  reason  that  God  has  given  me. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 


EXTRACT  FROM  A  REPLY 

TO   THE 

BISHOP  OF  LLANDAFF. 


[This  extract  from  Mr.  Paine's  reply  to  Watson,  Bishop  of  Llandaff,  was  given  by 
him,  not  long  before  his  death,  to  Mrs.  Palmer,  widow  of  Elihu  Palmer.  He  retain- 
ed the  work  entire,  and  therefore  must  have  transcribed  this  part,  which  was  unusual 
for  him  to  do.  Probably  he  had  discovered  errors,  which  he  corrected  in  the  oopy. 
Mrs.  Palmer  presented  it  to  the  editor  of  a  periodical  work  entitled  the  Theophilan- 
thropist,  published  in  New-York,  in  which  k  appeared  in  1810.] 


GENESIS. 

THE  Bishop  says,  "the  oldest  book  in  the  world  is  Genesis." 
This  is  mere  assertion  ;  he  offers  no  proof  of  it,  and  I  go  to  con- 
trovert it,  and  to  show  that  the  book  of  Job,  which  is  not  a  He- 
brew book,  but  is  a  book  of  the  Gentiles,  translated  into  Hebrew, 
is  much  older  than  the  book  of  Genesis. 

The  book  of  Genesis  means  the  book  of  Generations  ;  to  which 
are  prefixed  two  chapters,  the  first  and  second,  which  contain  two 
different  cosmoganies,  that  is,  two  different  accounts  of  the  crea- 
tion of  the  world,  written  by  different  persons,  as  I  have  shown 
in  the  preceding  part  of  this  work.* 

The  first  cosmogany  begins  at  the  first  verse  of  the  first  chap- 
ter, and  ends  at  the  end  of  the  third  verse  of  the  second  chapter  ; 
for  the  adverbial  conjunction  thus,  with  which  the  second  chapter 
begins,  shows  those  three  verses  to  belong  to  the  first  chapter. 
The  second  cosmogany  begins  at  the  fourth  verse  of  the  second 
chapter,  and  ends  with  that  chapter. 

In  the  first  cosmogany  the  name  of  God  is  used  without  any 
epithet  joined  to  it,  and  is  repeated  thirty-five  times.  In  the  se- 
cond cosmogany  it  is  always  the  Lord  God,  which  is  repeated 
eleven  times.  These  two  different  styles  of  expression  show  these 
two  chapters  to  be  the  work  of  two  different  persons,  and  the  con- 
tradictions they  contain,  show  they  cannot  be  the  work  of  one  and 
the  same  person,  as  I  have  already  shown. 

The  third  chapter,  in  which  the  style  of  Lord  God  is  continued 
in  every  instance,  except  in  the  supposed  conversation  between 
the  woman  and  the  serpent  (for  in  every  place  in  that  chapter 
where  the  writer  speaks,  it  is  always  the  Lord  God)  shows  this 
chapter  to  belong  to  the  second  cosmoganv. 

*  See  Letter  to  Erskine,  page  161, 


252  REPLY  TO    THE    BISHOP 

This  chapter  gives  an  account  of  what  is  called  the  fall  of  man, 
which  is  no  other  than  a.  fable  borrowed  from,  and  constructed 
upon  the  religion  of  Zoroaster,  or  the  Persians,  or  the  annual  pro-* 
gress  of  the  sun  through  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac.  It  is  the 
fall  of  the  year,  the  approach  and  evil  of  winter,  announced  by  the 
ascension  of  the  autumnal  constellation  of  the  serpent  of  the  Zo- 
diac, and  not  the  moral  fall  oftnan  that  is  the  key  of  the  allegory, 
and  of  the  fable  in  Genesis  borrowed  from  it. 

The  fall  of  man  in  Genesis,  is  said  to  have  been  produced  by 
eating  a  certain  fruit,  generally  taken  to  be  an  apple.  The  fall 
of  the  year  is  the  season  for  gathering  and  eating  the  new  apples' 
of  that  year.  The  allegory,  therefore,  holds  with  respect  to  the 
fruit,  which  it  would  not  have  done  had  it  been  an  early  summer 
fruit.  It  holds  also  with  respect  to  place.  The  tree  is  said  to 
have  been  placed  in  the  midst  of  the  garden.  But  why  in  the 
midst  of  the  garden  more  than  in  any  other  place  ?  The  solution 
of  the  allegory  gives  the  answer  to  this  question,  which  is,  that  the 
fall  of  the  year,  when  apples  and  other  autumnal  fruits  are  ripe, 
and  when  days  and  nights  are  of  equal  leagth,  is  the  mid-season 
between  summer  and  winter. 

It  holds  also  with  respect  to  clothing,  and  the  temperature  of 
the  air.  It  is  said  in  Genesis,  chap.  iii.  ver.  21,  Unto  Adam,  and 
his  wife  did  the  Lord  God  make  coats  of  skins  and  clothed  them." 
But  why  are  coats  of  skins  mentioned?  This  cannot  be  under- 
stood as  referring  to  any  thing  of  the  nature  of  moral  evil.  The 
solution  of  the  allegory  gives  again  the  answer  to  this  question, 
which  is,  that  the  evil  of  winter,  which  follows  the  fall  of  the  year, 
fabulously  called  in  Genesis  the  fall  ofinan,  makes  warm  clothing 
necessary. 

But  of  these  things  I  shall  speak  fully  when  I  come  in  another 
part  to  treat  of  the  ancient  religion  of  the  Persians,  and  compare 
it  with  the  modern  religion  of  the  New  Testament.*  At  present, 
I  shall  confine  myself  to  the  comparative  antiquity  of  the  books 
of  Genesis  and  Job,  taking,  at  the  same  time,  whatever  I  may  find 
in  my  way  with  respect  to  the  fabulousness  of  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis ;  for  if  what  is  called  the  fall  of  man  in  Genesis  be  fabulous  or 
allegorical,  that  which  is  called  the  redemption  in  the  New  Tes- 
tament cannot  be  a  fact.  It  is  morally  impossible,  and  impossi- 
ble also  in  the  nature  of  things,  that  inoral  good  can  redeem  phy* 
sical  evil.  I  return  to  the  Bishop. 

If  Genesis  be,  as  the  Bishop  asserts,  the  eldest  book  in  the 
world,  and,  consequently,  the  oldest  and  first  written  book  of 
the  Bible,  and  if  the  extraordinary  things  related  in  it,  such  as 
the  creation  of  the  world  in  six  days,  the  tree  of  life,  and  of  good 
and  evil,  the  story  of  Eve  and  the  talking  serpent,  the  fall  of  man 
and  his  being  turned  out  of  paradise,  were  facts,  or  even  believed 
by  the  Jews  to  be  facts,  they  would  be  referred  to  as  fundamen- 
*  Not  Published. 


OP    LLANDAFP.  253 

tal  matters,  and  that  very  frequently  in  the  books  of  the  Bible 
that  were  written  by  various  authors  afterwards  ;  whereas  there 
is  not  a  book,  chapter,  or  verse  of  the  Bible,  from  the  time  Mo- 
ses is  said  to  have  written  the  book  of  Genesis,  to  the  book  of 
Malachi,  the  last  book  in  the  Bible,  including  a  space  of  more 
than  a  thousand  years,  in  which  there  is  any  mention  made  of 
these  things,  or  any  of  them,  nor  are  they  so  much  as  alluded  to. 
How  will  the  Bishop  solve  this  difficulty,  which  stands  as  a  cir- 
cumstantial contradiction  to  his  assertion  ? 

There  are  but  two  ways  of  solving  it  : 

First,  that  the  book  of  Genesis  is  not  an  ancient  book  ;  that 
it  has  been  written  by  some  (now)  unknown  person  after  the  re- 
turn of  tlie  Jews  from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  about  a  thousand 
years  after  the  time  that  Moses  is  said  to  have  lived,  and  put  as 
a  preface  or  introduction  to  the  other  books,  when  they  were 
formed  into  a  canon  in  the  time  of  the  second  temple,  and,  there- 
fore not  having  existed  before  that  time,  none  of  these  things 
mentioned  in  it  could  be  referred  to  in  those  books. 

Secondly,  that  admitting  Genesis  to  have  been  written  by  Mo- 
ses, the  Jews  did  not  believe  the  things  stated  in  it  to  be  true, 
and,  therefore,  as  they  could  not  refer  to  them  as  facts,  they 
would  not  refer  to  them  as  fables.  The  first  of  these  solutions 
goes  against  the  antiquity  of  the  book,  and  the  second  against  its 
authenticity,  and  the  Bishop  may  take  which  he  pleases. 

But  be  the  author  of  Genesis  whoever  he  may,  there  is  abund- 
ant evidence  to  show,  as  well  from  the  early  Christian  writers, 
as  from  the  Jews  themselves,  that  the  things  stated  in  that  book 
were  not  believed  to  be  facts.  Why  they  have  been  believed  as 
facts  since  that  time,  when  better  and  fuller  knowledge  existed 
oa  the  case,  than  is  known  now,  can  be  accounted  for  only  on 
the  imposition  of  priestcraft. 

Augustine,  one  of  the  early  champions  of  the  Christian  church, 
acknowledges  in  his  City  of  God,  that  the  adventure  of  Eve  and 
the  serpent,  and  the  account  of  Paradise,  were  generally  consid- 
ered as  fiction  or  allegory.  He  regards  them  as  allegory  him- 
self, without  attempting  to  give  any  explanation  ;  but  he  supposes 
that  a  better  explanation  might  be  found  than  those  that  had 
been  offered. 

Origen,  another  early  champion  of  the  church,  says,  "  What 
man  of  good  sense  can  ever  persuade  himself  that  there  were  a 
first,  a  second,  and  a  third  day,  and  that  each  of  these  days  had 
a  night,  when  there  were  yet  neither  sun,  moon,  nor  stars.  What 
man  can  be  stupid  enough  to  believe"  that  God,  acting  the  part 
of  a  gardener,  had  planted  a  garden  in  the  east,  that  the  tree  of 
life  was  a  real  tree,  and  that  its  fruit  had  the  virtue  of  making 
those  who  eat  of  it  live  for  ever  ?" 

Marmonides,  one  of  the  most  learned  and  celebrated  of  the 
Jewish  Rabbins,  who  lived  in  the  eleventh  century  (about  seven 
22 


254  REPLY   TO    THE   BISHOP 

or  eight  hundred  years  ago)  and  to  whom  the  Bishop  refers  in 
his  answer  to  me,  is  very  explicit,  in  his  book  entitled  More  JVe- 
bachim,  upon  the  non-reality  of  the  things  stated  in  the  account 
of  the  Creation  in  the  book  of  Genesis. 

"  We  ought  not  (says  he)  to  understand,  nor  take  according 
to  the  letter,  that  which  is  written  in  the  book  of  the  Creation,  nor 
to  have  the  same  ideas  of  it  with  common  men  ;  otherwise,  our 
ancient  sages  would  not  have  recommended,  with  so  much  care, 
to  conceal  the  sense  of  it,  and  not  to  raise  the  allegorical  veil 
which  envelopes  the  truth  it  contains.  The  book  of  Genesis, 
taken  according  to  the  letter,  gives  the  most  absurd  and  the  most 
extravagant  ideas  of  the  Divinity.  Whoever  shall  find  out  the 
sense  of  it,  ought  to  restrain  himself  from  divulging  it.  It  is  a 
maxim  which  all  our  sages  repeat,  and  above  all  with  respect  to 
the  work  of  six  days.  It  may  happen  that  some  one,  with  the 
aid  he  may  borrow  from  others,  may  hit  upon  the  meaning  of  it. 
In  that  case,  he  ought  to  impose  silence  upon  himself ;  or  if  he 
speak  of  it,  he  ought  to  speak  obscurely,  and  in  an  enigmatical 
manner,  as  I  do  myself,  leaving  the  rest  to  be  found  out  by  those 
who  can  understand." 

This  is,  certainly,  a  very  extraordinary  declaration  of  Marmo- 
nides,  taking  all  the  parts  of  it. 

First,  he  declares,  that  the  account  of  the  Creation  in  the  book 
of  Genesis  is  not  a  fact  ;  that  to  believe  it  to  be  a  fact,  gives  the 
most  absurd  and  the  most  extravagant  ideas  of  the  Divinity. 

Secondly,  that  it  is  an  allegory. 

Thirdly,  that  the  allegory  has  a  concealed  secret. 

Fourthly,  that  whoever  can  find  the  secret  ought  not  to  tell  it. 

It  is  this  last  part  that  is  the  most  extraordinary.  Why  all 
this  care  of  the  Jewish  Rabbins,  to  prevent  what  they  call  the 
concealed  meaning,  or  the  secret  from  being  known,  and  if  known, 
to  prevent  any  of  their  people  from  telling  it  ?  It  certainly  must 
be  something  which  the  Jewish  nation  are  afraid  or  ashamed  the 
world  should  know.  It  must  be  something  personal  to  them  as 
a  people,  and  not  a  secret  of  a  divine  nature,  which  the  more  it  is 
known,  the  more  it  increases  the  glory  of  the  Creator,  and  the 
gratitude  and  happiness  of  man.  It  is  not  God's  secret,  but  their 
own,  they  are  keeping.  I  go  to  unveil  the  secret. 

The  case  is,  the  Jews  have  stolen  their  cosmogany,  that  is, 
their  account  of  the  Creation,  from  the  cosmogany  of  the  Per- 
sians, contained  in  the  book  of  Zoroaster,  the  Persian  lawgiver, 
and  brought  it  with  them  when  they  returned  from  captivity  by 
the  benevolence  of  Cyrus,  King  of  Persia  ;  for  it  is  evident, 
from  the  silence  of  all  the  books  of  the  Bible  upon  the  subject 
of  the  Creation,  that  the  Jews  had  no  cosmogany  before  that 
time.  If  they  had  a  cosmogany  from  the  time  of  Moses,  some 
of  their  judges  who  governed  during  more  than  four  hundred 
years,  or  of  their  kings,  the  Davids  and  Solomons  of  their  day, 


OP    LLANDAPF.  255 

who  governed  nearly  five  hundred  years,  or  of  their  prophets 
and  psalmists,  who  lived  in  the  meantime,  would  have  mention- 
ed it.  It  would,  either  as  fact  or  fable,  have  been  the  grandest 
of  all  subjects  for  a.  psalm.  It  would  have  suited  to  a  tittle  the 
ranting,  poetical  genius  of  Isaiah,  or  served  as  a  cordial  to  the 
gloomy  Jeremiah.  But  not  one  word  nor  even  a  whisper,  does 
any  of  the  Bible  authors  give  upon  the  subject. 

To  conceal  the  theft,  the  Rabbins  of  the  second  temple  have 
published  Genesis  as  a  book  of  Moses,  and  have  enjoined  secresy 
to  all  their  people,  who  by  travelling  or  otherwise  might  happen 
to  discover  from  whence  the  cosmogany  was  borrowed,  not  to 
tell  it.  The  evidence  of  circumstances  is  often  unanswerable, 
and  there  is  no  other  than  this  which  I  have  given,  that  goes  to 
the  whole  of  the  case,  and  this  does. 

Diogenes  Laertius,  an  ancient  and  respectable  author,  whom 
the  Bishop,  in  his  answer  to  me,  quotes  on  another  occasion,  has 
a  passage  that  corresponds  with  the  solution  here  given.  In 
speaking  of  the  religion  of  the  Persians  as  promulgated  by  their 
priests  or  magi,  he  says,  the  Jewish  Rabbins  were  the  succes- 
sors of  their  doctrine.  Having  thus  spoken  on  the  plagiarism, 
and  on  the  non-reality  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  I  will  give  some 
additional  evidence  that  Moses  is  not  the  author  of  that  book. 

Eben-Ezra,  a  celebrated  Jewish  author,  who  lived  about  seven 
hundred  years  ago,  and  whom  the  Bishop  allows  to  have  been  a 
man  of  great  erudition,  has  made  a  great  many  observations,  too 
numerous  to  be  repeated  here,  to  show  that  Moses  was  not,  and 
could  not  be,  the  author  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  nor  any  of  the 
five  books  that  bear  his  name. 

Spinosa,  another  learned  Jew,  who  lived  about  a  hundred  and 
thirty  years  ago,  recites,  in  his  treatise  on  the  ceremonies  of  the 
Jews,  ancient  and  modern,  the  observations  of  Eben-Ezra,  to 
which  he  adds  many  others,  to  show  that  Moses  is  not  the  author 
of  these  books.  He  so  says,  and  shows  his  reasons  for  say- 
ing it,  that  the  Bible  did  not  exist  as  a  book,  till  the  time  of  the 
Maccabees,  which  was  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  the 
return  of  the  Jews  from  the  Babylonian  captivity. 

In  the  second  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  I  have,  among  oth- 
er things,  referred  to  nine  verses  in  the  36th  chapter  of  Genesis, 
beginning  at  the  31st  verse,  "  These  are  the  kings  that  reigned 
in  Edom,  before  there  reigned  any  king  over  the  children  of 
Israel,"  which  it  is  impossible  could  have  been  written  by  Moses, 
or  in  the  time  of  Moses,  and  could  not  have  been  written  till 
after  the  Jew  kings  began  to  reign  in  Israel,  which  was  not  till 
several  hundred  years  after  the  time  of  Moses. 

The  Bishop  allows  this,  and  says,  "  I  think  you  say  true." 
But  he  then  quibbles,  and  says,  that  a  small  addition  to  a  book 
does  not  destroy  either  the  genuineness  or  authenticity  of  the 
whole  book.  This  is  priestcraft.  These  verses  do  not  stand 


256  REPLY   TO    THE    BISHOP 

in  the  book  as  an  addition  to  it,  but  as  making  a  part  of  the 
whole  book,  and  which  it  is  impossible  that  Moses  could  write. 
The  Bishop  would  reject  the  antiquity  of  any  other  book  if  it 
could  be  proved  from  the  words  of  the  book  itself  that  a  part  of 
it  could  not  have  been  written  till  several  hundred  years  after  the 
reputed  author  of  it  was  dead.  He  would  call  such  a  book  a 
forgery.  I  am  authorized,  therefore,  to  call  the  book  of  Gene- 
sis a  forgery. 

Combining,  then,  all  the  foregoing  circumstances  together  re- 
specting the  antiquity  and  authenticity  of  the  book  of  Genesis,  a 
conclusion  will  naturally  follow  therefrom;  those  circumstances 
are, 

First,  that  certain  parts  of  the  book  cannot  possibly  have  been 
written  by  Moses,  and  that  the  other  parts  carry  no  evidence  of 
having  been  written  by  him. 

Secondly,  the  universal  silence  of  all  the  following  books  of 
the  Bible,  for  about  a  thousand  years,  upon  the  extraordinary 
things  spoken  of  in  Genesis,  such  as  the  creation  of  the  world 
in  six  days — the  garden  of  Eden — the  tree  of  knowledge — the 
tree  of  life — the  story  of  Eve  and  the  serpent — the  fall  of  man, 
and  his  being  turned  out  of  this  fine  garden,  together  with  Noah's 
flood,  and  the  tower  of  Babel. 

Thirdly,  the  silence  of  all  the  books  of  the  Bible  upon  even 
the  name  of  Moses,  from  the  book  of  Joshua  until  the  second 
book  of  Kings,  which  was  not  written  till  after  the  captivity,  for 
it  gives  an  account  of  the  captivity,  a  period  of  about  a  thou- 
sand years.  Strange  that  a  man  who  is  proclaimed  as  the  histo- 
rian of  the  Creation,  the  privy-counsellor  and  confidant  of  the 
Almighty — the  legislator  of  the  Jewish  nation,  and  the  founder 
of  its  religion  ;  strange,  I  say,  that  even  the  name  of  such  a 
man  should  not  find  a  place  in  their  books  for  a  thousand  years, 
if  they  knew  or  believed  any  thing  about  him,  or  the  books  he  is 
said  to  have  written. 

Fourthly,  the  opinion  of  some  of  the  most  celebrated  of  the 
Jewish  commentators,  that  Moses  is  not  the  author  ot  the  book 
of  Genesis,  founded  on  the  reasons  given  for  that  opinion. 

Fifthly,  the  opinion  of  the  early  Christian  writers,  and  of  the 
great  champion  of  Jewish  literature,  Marmonides,  that  the  book 
of  Genesis  is  not  a  book  of  facts. 

Sixthly,  the  silence  imposed  by  all  the  Jewish  Rabbins,  and  by 
Marmonides  himself,  upon  the  Jewish  nation,  not  to  speak  of  any 
thing  they  may  happen  to  know,  or  discover,  respecting  the  cos- 
mogany  (or  creation  of  the  world)  in  the  book  of  Genesis. 

From  these  circumstances  the  following  conclusions  offer  : 

First,  that  the  book  of  Genesis  is  not  a  book  of  facts. 

Secondly,  that  as  no  mention  is  made  throughout  the  Bible  of 
any  of  the  extraordinary  things  related  in  Genesis,  that  it  has  not 
been  written  till  after  the  other  books  were  written,  and  put  as  a 


OP    LLANDAFF.  257 

preface  to  the  Bible.     Every  one  knows  that  a  preface  to  a  book, 
though  it  stands  first,  is  the  last  written. 

Thirdly,  that  the  silence  imposed  by  all  the  Jewish  Rabbins, 
and  by  Marmonides  upon  the  Jewish  nation,  to  keep  silence  up- 
on every  thing  related  in  their  cosmogany,  evinces  a  secret  they 
are  not  willing  should  be  known.  The  secret  therefore  explains 
itself  to  be,  that  when  the  Jews  were  in  captivity  in  Babylon  and 
Persia,  they  became  acquainted  with  the  cosmogany  of  the  Per- 
sians, as  registered  in  the  Zend-Avesta,  of  Zoroaster,  the  Per- 
sian lawgiver,  which  after  their  return  from  captivity  they  man- 
ufactured and  modelled  as  their  own,  and  anti-dated  it  by  giving 
to  it  the  name  of  Moses.  The  case  admits  of  no  other  explana- 
tion. From  all  which  it  appears  that  the  book  of  Genesis,  in- 
stead of  being  the  oldest  book  in  the  world,  as  the  Bishop  calls  it, 
has  been  the  last  written  book  of  the  Bible,  and  that  the  cosmog- 
any it  contains  has  been  manufactured. 

ON  THE  NAMES  IN  THE  BOOK  OF  GENESIS. 

Every  thing  in  Genesis  serves  as  evidence  or  symptom,  that 
the  book  has  been  composed  in  some  late  period  of  the  Jewisn 
nation.  Even  the  names  mentioned  in  it  serve  to  this  purpose. 

Nothing  is  more  common  or  more  natural,  than  to  name  the 
children  of  succeeding  generations,  after  the  names  ofthose  who 
had  been  celebrated  in  some  former  generation.  This  holds 
good  with  respect  to  all  the  peopie,  and  all  the  histories  we  know 
of,  and  it  does  not  hold  good  with  the  Bible.  There  must  be 
some  cause  for  this. 

This  book  of  Genesis  tells  us  of  a  man  whom  it  calls  Adam, 
and  of  his  sons  Abel  and  Seth  ;  of  Enoch,  who  lived  365  years 
(it  is  exactly  the  number  of  days  in  a  year,)  and  that  thon  God 
took  him  up.  It  has  the  appearance  of  being  taken  from  some 
allegory  of  the  Gentiles  on  the  commencement  and  termination 
of  the  year,  by  the  progress  of  the  sun  through  the  twelve  signs 
of  the  Zodiac,  on  which  the  allegorical  religion  of  the  Gentiles 
was  founded. 

It  tells  us  of  Methuselah  who  lived  969  years,  and  of  a  long 
train  of  other  names  in  the  fifth  chapter.  It  then  passes  on  to  a 
man  whom  it  calls  Noah,  and  his  sons,  Shem,  Ham,  and  Japhet : 
then  to  Lot,  Abraham,  Isaac  and  Jacob,  and  his  sons,  with  which 
the  book  of  Genesis  finishes. 

All  these,  according  to  the  account  given  in  that  book,  were 
the  most  extraordinary  and  celebrated  of  men.  They  were, 
moreover,  heads  of  families.  Adam  was  the  father  of  the  .world. 
Enoch,  for  his  righteousness,  was  taken  up  to  heaven.  Methu- 
selah lived  to  almost  a  thousand  years.  He  was  the  son  of 
Enoch,  the  man  of  365,  the  number  of  days  in  a  year.  It  has 
the  appearance  of  being  the  continuation  of  an  allegory  on  the 
22* 


258  REPLY   TO    THE    BISHOP 

365  days  of  a  year,  and  its  abundant  productions.  Noah  was 
selected  from  all  the  world  to  be  preserved  when  it  was  drowned, 
and  became  the  second  father  of  the  world.  Abraham  was  the 
father  of  the  faithful  multitude.  Isaac  and  Jacob  were  the  in- 
heritors of  his  fame,  and  the  last  was  the  father  of  the  twelve 
tribes. 

Now,  if  these  very  wonderful  men  and  their  names,  and  the 
book  that  records  them,  had  been  known  by  the  Jews  before  the 
Babylonian  captivity,  those  names  would  have  been  as  common 
among  the  Jews  before  that  period  as  they  have  been  since.  We 
now  hear  of  thousands  of  Abrahams,  Isaacs,  and  Jacobs  among 
the  Jews,  but  there  were  none  of  that  name  before  the  Babyloni- 
an captivity.  The  Bible  does  not  mention  one-,  though  from  the 
time  that  Abraham  is  said  to  have  lived,  tothetime-of  the  Baby- 
lonian captivity,  is^ibout  1400  years. 

How  is  it  to  be  accounted  for  that  there  have  been  so  many 
thousands,  and  .perhaps  hundreds  of  thousands  of  Jews  of  the 
names  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Jacob  since  that  period,  and  not 
one  before  ?  It  can  be  accounted  for  but  one  way,  which  is, 
that  before  the  Babylonian  captivity  the  Jews  had  no  such  books 
as  Genesis,  nor  knew  any  thing  of  the  names  and  persons  it  men- 
tions, nor  of  the  things  it  relates,  and  that  the  stories  in  it  have 
been  manufactured  since  that  time.  From  the  Arabic  name 
Ibrahim  (which  is  the  manner  the  Turks  write  that  name  to  this 
day)  the  Jews  have,  most  probably,  manufactured  their  Abra- 
ham. 

I  will  advance  ray  observations  a  point  further,  and  speak  of 
the  names  of  Moses  and  Jlaron,  mentioned  for  the  first  time  in 
the  book  of  Exodus.  There  are  now,  and  have  continued  to  be 
from  the  time  of  the  Babylonian  captivity,  or  soon  after  it,  thou- 
sands of  Jews  of  the  names  of  Moses  and  Jlaron,  and  we  read 
not  of  any  of  that  name  before  that  time.  The  Bible  does  not 
mention  one.  The  direct  inference  from  this  is,  that  the  Jews 
knew  of  no  such  book  as  Exodus  before  the  Babylonian  captivi- 
ty. In  fact,  that  it  did  not  exist  before  that  time,  and  that  it  is 
only  since  the  book  has  been  invented,  that  the  names  of  Moses 
and  Aaron  have  been  common  among  the  Jews. 

It  is  applicable  to  the  purpose  to  observe,  that  the  picturesque 
work,  called  Mosaic-work,  spelled  the  same  as  you  would  say  the 
Mosaic  account  of  the  Creation,  is  not  derived  from  the  word 
Moses,  but  from  Muses  (the  Muses ,)  because  of  the  variegated  and 
picturesque  pavement  in  the  temples  dedicated  to  the  Muses.  This 
carries  a  strong  implication  that  the  name  Moses  is  drawn  from  the 
same  source,  and  that  he  is  not  a  real  but  an  allegorical  person,  as 
Marmonides  describes  what  is  called  the  Mosaic  account  of  the 
Creation  to  be. 

I  will  go  a  point  still  further.  The  Jews  now  know  the  book  of 
Genesis,  and  the  names  of  all  the  persons  mentioned  in  the  first 


OF    LLANDAFF.  259 

ten  chapters  of  that  book,  from  Adam  to  Noah:  yet  we  do  not  hear 
(I  speak  for  myself)  of  any  Jew,  of  the  present  day,  of  the  name 
of  Adam,  Abel,  Seth,  Enoch,  Methuselah,  Noah,*  Shem,  Ham. 
or  Japhet,  (names  mentioned  in  the  first  ten  chapters)  though 
these  were,  according  to  the  account  in  that  book,  the  most  extra- 
ordinary of  all  the  names  that  make  up  the  catalogue  of  the  Jew- 
ish chronology. 

The  names  the  Jews  now  adopt,  are  those  that  are  mentioned 
in  Genesis  after  the  tenth  chapter,  as  Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  &c. 
How  then  does  it  happen,  that  they  do  not  adopt  the  names  found 
in  the  first  ten  chapters  ?  Here  is  evidently  a  line  of  division 
drawn  between  the  first  ten  chapters  of  Genesis,  and  the  remain- 
ing chapters,  with  respect  to  the  adoption  of  names.  There  must 
be  some  cause  for  this,  and  I  go  to  offer  a  solution  of  the  problem. 

The  reader  will  recollect  the  quotation  I  have  already  made 
from  the  Jewish  Rabbin  Marmonides,  wherein  he  says,  "  We 
ought  not  to  understand  nor  to  take  according  to'the  letter  that 
which  is  written  in  the  book  of  the  Creation.  It  is  a  maxim  (says 
he)  which  all  our  sages  repeat  above  allj  with  respect  to  the  work 
of  six  days." 

The  qualifying  expression  above  all,  implies  there  are  other 
parts  of  the  book,  though  not  so  important,  that  ought  not  to  be 
understood  or  taken  according  to  the  letter,  and  as  the  Jews  do  not 
adopt  the  names  mentioned  in  the  first  ten  chapters,  it  appears  evi- 
dent those  chapters  are  included  in  the  injunction  not  to  take  them 
in  a  literal  sense,  or  according  to  the  letter ;  from  which  it  fol- 
lows, that  the  persons  or  characters  mentioned  in  the  first  ten  chap- 
ters, as  Adam,  Abel,  Seth,  Enoch,  Methuselah,  and  so  on  to  Noah, 
are  not  real  but  fictitious  or  allegorical  persons,  and  therefore  the 
Jews  do  not  adopt  their  names  into  their  families.  If  they  affixed 
the  same  idea  of  reality  to  them  as  they  do  to  those  that  follow  af- 
ter the  tenth  chapter,  the  names  of  Adam,  Abel,  Seth,  &c.  would 
be  as  common  among  the  Jews  of  the  present  day,  as  are  those  of 
Abraham,  Isaac,  Jacob,  Moses  and  Aaron. 

In  the  superstition  the;r  have  been  in,  scarcely  a  Jew  family 
wouid  have  been  without  an  Enoch,  as  a  presage  of  his  going  to 
heaven,  as  ambassador  for  the  whole  family.  Every  mother  who 
wished  that  the  days  of  her  son  might  be  long  in  the  land  would  call 
him  Methuselah  ;  and  all  the  Jews  that  might  have  to  traverse  the 
ocean  would  be  named  Noah,  as  a  charm  against  shipwreck  and 
drowning. 

This  is  domestic  evidence  against  the  book  of  Genesis,  whicb, 
joined  to  the  several  kinds  of  evidence  before  recited,  show  the 
book  of  Genesis  not  to  be  older  than  the  Babylonian  captivity,  and 
to  be  fictitious.  I  proceed  to  fix  the  character  and  antiquity  of 
the  book  of 

*  Noah  is  an  exception ;  there  are  of  that  name  among  die  Jews.         EDITOR. 


260  REPLY    TO    THE   BISHOP 


JOB. 

The  book  of  Job  has  not  the  least  appearance  of  being  a  book 
of  the  Jews,  and  though  printed  among  the  books  of  the  Bible, 
does  not  belong  to  it.  There  is  no  reference  in  it  to  any  Jewish 
law  or  ceremony.  On  the  contrary,  all  the  internal  evidence  it 
contains  shows  it  to  be  a  book  of  the  Gentiles,  either  of  Persia  or 
Chaldea. 

The  name  of  Job  does  not  appear  to  be  a  Jewish  name.  There 
is  no  Jew  of  that  name  in  any  of  the  books  of  the  Bible,  neither  is 
there  now  that  I  ever  heard  of.  The  country  where  Job  is  said 
or  supposed  to  have  lived,  or  rather  where  the  scene  of  the  drama 
is  laid,  is  called  Uz,  and  there  was  no  place  of  that  name  ever  be- 
longing to  the  Jews.  If  Uz  is  the  same  as  Ur,  it  was  in  Chaldea, 
the  country  of  the  Gentiles. 

The  Jews  can  give  no  account  how  they  came  by  this  book, 
nor  who  was  the  author,  nor  the  time  when  it  was  written.  Ori- 
gen,  in  his  work  against  Celsus  (in  the  first  ages  of  the  Christian 
church,)  says,  that  the  book  of  Job  is  older  than  Moses.  Eben-Ez- 
ra,  the  Jewish  commentator,  whom  (as  I  have  before  said)  the 
Bishop  allows  to  have  been  a  man  of  great  erudition,  and  who  cer- 
tainly understood  his  own  language,  says,  that  the  book  of  Job  has 
been  translated  from  another  language  into  Hebrew.  Spinosa, 
another  Jewish  commentator  of  great  learning,  confirms  the  opin- 
ion of  Eben-Ezra,  and  says  moreover,  "  Je  crois  que  Job  etait 
Gentie  ;"*  I  believe  that  Job  was  a  Gentile. 

The  Bishop  (in  his  answer  to  me)  says,  "  that  the  structure  of 
the  whole  book  of  Job,  in  whatever  light  of  history  or  drama  it 
be  considered,  is  founded  on  the  belief  that  prevailed  with  the 
Persians  and  Chaldeans,  and  other  Gentile  nations,  of  a  good  and 
an  evil  spirit." 

In  speaking  of  the  good  and  evil  spirit  of  the  Persians,  the 
Bishop  writes  them  Jlrimanius  and  Oromasdes.  I  will  not  dis- 
pute about  the  orthography,  because  I  know  that  translated 
names  are  differently  spelled  in  different  languages.  But  he 
has  nevertheless  made  a  capital  error.  He  has  put  the  Devil 
first  ;  for  Arimanius,  or,  as  it  is  more  generally  written,  <Ahrimany 
is  the  evil  spirit,  and  Oromasdes  or  Ormusd  the  good  spirit.  He 
has  made  the  same  mistake,  in  the  same  paragraph,  in  speaking 
of  the  good  and  evil  spirit  of  the  ancient  Egyptians  Osiris  and 
Typho,  he  puts  Typho  before  Osiris.  The  error  is  just  the  same 
as  if  the  Bishop,  in  writing  about  the  Christian  religion,  or  in 
preaching  a  sermon,  were  to  say  the  Devil  and  God.  A  priest 
ought  to  know  his  own  trade  better.  We  agree,  however,  about 
the  structure  of  the  book  of  Job,  that  it  is  Gentile.  I  have  said 

*  Spinosa  on  the  Ceremonies  of  the  Jews,  page  296,  published  in  French  at  Am- 
•terdara,  1678. 


OF    LLANDAFF.  261 

in  the  second  part  of  the  Age  of  Reason,  and  given  my  reasons 
for  it,  that  the  drama  of  it  is  not  Hebrew. 

From  the  testimonies  I  have  cited,  that  of  Origen,  who,  about 
fourteen  hundred  years  ago,  said  that  the  book  of  Job  was  more 
ancient  than  Moses,  that  of  Eben-Ezra,  who  in  his  commentary 
on  Job,  says,  it  has  been  translated  from  another  language  (and 
consequently  from  a  Gentile  language)  into  Hebrew  ;  that  of 
Spinosa,  who  not  only  says  the  same  thing,  but  that  the  author 
of  it  was  a  Gentile  ;  and  that  of  the  Bishop,  who  says  that  the 
structure  of  the  whole  book  is  Gentile.  It  follows  then,  in  the 
first  place,  that  the  book  of  Job  is  not  a  book  of  the  Jews  orig- 
inally. 

Then,  in  order  to  determine  to  what  people  or  nation  any  book 
of  religion  beKngs,  we  must  compare  it  with  the  leading  dogmas 
and  precepts  of  tnat  people  or  nation  ;  and  therefore,  upon  the 
Bishop's  own  construction,  the  book  of  Job  belongs  either  to  the 
ancient  Persians,  the  Chaldeans,  or  the  Egyptians  ;  because  the 
structure  of  it  is  consistent  with  the  dogma  they  held,  that  of  a 
good  and  evil  spirit,  called  in  Job,  God  and  Satan,  existing  as 
distinct  and  separate  beings,  arid  it  is  not  consistent  with  any 
dogma  of  the  Jews. 

The  belief  of  a  good  and  an  evil  spirit,  existing  as  distinct  and 
separate  beings,  is  not  a  dogma  to  be  found  in  any  of  the  books 
of  the  Bible.  It  is  not  till  we  come  to  the  New  Testament  that 
we  hear  of  any  such  dogma.  There  the  person  called  the  Son 
of  God,  holds  conversation  with  Satan  on  a  mountain,  as  familiar- 
ly as  is  represented  in  the  drama  of  Job.  Consequently  the  Bish- 
op cannot  say,  in  this  respect,  that  the  New  Testament  is 
founded  upon  the  Old.  According  to  the  Old,  the  God  of  the 
Jews  was  the  God  of  every  thing.  All  good  and  all  evil  came 
from  him.  According  to  Exodus  it  was  God,  and  not  the  Devil, 
that  hardened  Pharaoh's  heart.  According  to  the  book  of  Sam- 
uel it  was  an  evil  spirit  from  God  that  troubled  Saul.  And  Eze- 
kiel  makes  God  to  say,  in  speaking  of  the  Jews,  "I  gave  them  the 
statutes  that  were  not  good,  and  judgments  by  which  they  should  not 
live."  The  Bible  describes  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and  Ja- 
cob in  such  a  contradictory  manner,  and  under  such  a  two-fold 
character,  there  would  be  no  knowing  when  he  was  in  earnest 
and  when  in  irony  ;  when  to  believe,  and  when  not.  As  to  the 
precepts,  principles,  and  maxims,  in  the  book  of  Job,  they  show 
that  the  people,  abusively  called  the  heathen  in  the  books  of  the 
Jews,  had  the  most  sublime  ideas  of  the  Creator,  and  the  most 
exalted  devotional  morality.  It  was  the  Jews  who  dishonoured 
God.  It  was  the  Gentiles  who  glorified  him.  As  to  the  fabulous 
personifications  introduced  by  the  Greek  and  Latin  poets,  it  was 
a  corruption  of  the  ancient  religion  of  the  Gentiles,  which  con- 
sisted in  tbe  adoration  of  a  first  cause  of  the  works  of  the  creation, 
in  which  the  sun  was  the  great  visible  agent. 


262  REPLY    TO    THE    BISHOP 

It  appears  to  have  been  a  religion  of  gratitude  and  adoration, 
and  not  of  prayer  and  discontented  solicitation.  In  Job  we  find 
adoration  and  submission,  but  not  prayer.  Even  the  ten  com- 
mandments enjoin  not  prayer.  Prayer  has  been  added  to  devo- 
tion, by  the  church  of  Rome,  as  the  instrument  of  fees  and  per- 
quisites. All  prayers  by  the  priests  of  the  Christian  church, 
whether  public  or  private,  must  be  paid  for.  It  may  be  right, 
individually,  to  pray  for  virtues,  or  mental  instruction,  but  not 
for  things.  It  is  an  attempt  to  dictate  to  the  Almighty  in  the 
government  of  the  world.  But  to  return  to  the  book  of  Job. 

As  the  book  of  Job  decides  itself  to  be  a  book  of  the  Gentiles, 
the  next  thing  is  to  find  out  to  what  particular  nation  it  belongs, 
and  lastly,  what  is  its  antiquity. 

Asa  composition,  it  is  sublime,  beautiful,  and  scientific  :  full 
of  sentiment,  and  abounding  in  grand  metaphorical  description. 
As  a  drama,  it  is  regular.  The  dramatis  personse,  the  persons 
performing  the  several  parts,  are  regularly  introduced,  and  speak 
without  interruption  or  confusion.  The  scene,  as  I  have  before 
said,  is  laid  in  the  country  of  the  Gentiles,  and  the  unities,  though 
not  always  necessary  in  a  drama,  are  observed  here  as  strictly 
as  the  subject  would  admit. 

In  the  last  act,  where  the  Almighty  is  introduced  as  speaking 
from  the  whirlwind,  to  decide  the  controversy  between  Job  and 
his  friends,  it  is  an  idea  as  grand  as  poetical  imagination  can 
conceive.  What  follows  of  Job's  future  prosperity  does  not  be- 
long to  it  as  a  drama.  It  is  an  epilogue  of  the  writer,  as  the 
first  verses  of  the  first  chapter,  which  gave  an  account  of  Job, 
his  country  and  his  riches,  are  the  prologue. 

The  book  carries  the  appearance  of  being  the  work  of  some 
of  the  Persian  Magi,  not  only  because  the  structure  of  it  corres- 
ponds to  the  dogmas  of  the  religion  of  those  people,  as  founded  by 
Zoroaster,  but  from  the  astronomical  references  in  it  to  the  constel- 
lations of  the  Zodiac  and  other  objects  in  the  heavens,  of  which 
the  sun,  in  their  religion  called  Mithra,  was  the  chief.  Job,  in 
describing  the  power  of  God  (Job  ix.  v.  27,)  says,  "  Who  com- 
mandeth  the  sun,  and  it  riseth  not,  and  sealeth  up  the  stars — 
who  alone  spread eth  out  the  heavens,  and  treadeth  upon  the 
waves  of  the  sea — who  maketh  Arcturus,  Orion,  and  Pleiades, 
and  the  chambers  of  the  south."  All  this  astronomical  allusion 
is  consistent  with  the  religion  of  the  Persians. 

Establishing  then  the  book  of  Job,  as  the  work  of  some  of  the 
Persian  or  Eastern  Magi,  the  case  naturally  follows,  that  when 
the  Jews  returned  from  captivity,  by  the  permission  of  Cyrus, 
king  of  Persia,  they  brought  this  book  wich  them  :  had  it  trans- 
lated into  Hebrew,  and  put  into  their  scriptural  canons,  which 
were  not  formed  till  after  their  return.  This  will  account  for 
the  name  of  Job  being  mentioned  in  Ezekiel  (Ezekiel,  chap.  xiv. 
v.  14,)  who  was  one  of  the  captives,  and  also  for  its  not  being 


OF    LLANDAFF.  263 

mentioned  in  any  book  said  or  supposed  to  have  been  written  be- 
fore the  captivity. 

Among  the  astronomical  allusions  in  the  book,  there  is  one 
which  serves  to  fix  its  antiquity.  It  is  that  where  God  is  made 
io  say  to  Job,  in  the  style  of  reprimand,  "  Canst  thou  bind  the 
sweet  influences  of  Pleiades."  (Chap,  xxxviii.  ver.  31.)  As  the 
explanation  of  this  depends  upon  astronomical  calculation,  I  will, 
for  the  sake  of  those  who  would  not  otherwise  understand  it,  en- 
deavour to  explain  it  as  clearly  as  the  subject  will  admit. 

The  Pleiades  are  a  cluster  of  pale,  milky  stars,  about  the  size 
of  a  man's  hand,  in  the  constellation  of  Taurus,  or  in  English, 
the  Bull.  It  is  one  of  the  constellations  of  the  Zodiac,  of  which 
there  are  twelve,  answering  to  the  twelve  months  of  the  year. 
The  Pleiades  are  visible  in  the  winter  nights,  but  not  in  the  sum- 
4  mer  nights,  being  then  below  the  horizon. 

The  Zodiac  is  an  imaginary  belt  or  circle  in  the  heavens,  eigh- 
teen degrees  broad,  in  which  the  sun  apparently  makes  his  an- 
nual course,  and  in  which  all  the  planets  move.  When  the  sun 
appears  to  our  view  to  be  between  us  and  the  group  of  stars  form- 
ing such  or  such  a  constellation,  he  is  said  to  b-e  in  that  constel- 
lation. Consequently  the  constellation  he  appears  to  be  in,  in  the 
summer,  are  directly  opposite  to  those  he  appeared  in,  in  the  win- 
ter, and  the  same  with  respect  to  spring  and  autumn. 

The  Zodiac,  besides  being  divided  into  twelve  constellations, 
is  also,  like  every  other  circle,  great  or  small,  divided  into  360 
equal  parts,  called  degrees  ;  consequently  each  constellation  con- 
tains 30  degrees.  The  constellations  of  the  Zodiac  are  gene- 
rally called  signs,  to  distinguish  them  from  the  constellations 
that  are  placed  out  of  the  Zodiac,  and  tlu's  is  the  name  I  shall 
now  use. 

The  precession  of  the  equinoxes  is  the  part  most  difficult 
to  explain,  and  it  is  on  this  that  the  explanation  chiefly  depends. 

The  equinoxes  correspond  to  the  two  seasons  of  the  year, 
when  the  sun  makes  equal  day  and  night. 

The  following  is  a  disconnected  part  of  the  same  work,  and  is  now 
(1824)  first  published. 


SABBATH  OR  SUNDAY. 

The  seventh  day,  or  more  properly  speaking  the  period  of 
seven  days,  was  originally  a  numerical  division  of  time,  and  noth- 
ing more  ;  and  had  the  bishop  been  acquainted  with  the  history 
of  astronomy  he  would  have  known  this.  The  annual  revolution 
of  the  earth  makes  what  we  call  a  year. 


264  REPLY   TO    THE    BISHOP 

The  year  is  artificially  divided  into  months,  the  montns  into 
weeks  of  seven  days,  the  days  into  hours,  &c.  The  period  of 
seven  days,  like  any  other  of  the  artificial  divisions  of  the  year, 
is  only  a  fractional  part  thereof,  contrived  for  the  convenience  of 
counters. 

It  is  ignorance,  imposition,  and  priest-craft,  that  have  called  it 
otherwise.  They  might  as  well  talk  of  the  Lord's  month,  of  the 
Lord's  week,  of  the  Lord's  hour,  as  of  the  Lord's  day.  All  time 
is  his,  and  no  part  of  it  is  more  holy  or  more  sacred  than  another. 
It  is  however  necessary  to  the  trade  of  a  priest  that  he  should 
preach  up  a  distinction  of  days. 

Before  the  science  of  astronomy  was  studied  and  carried  to 
the  degree  of  eminence  to  which  it  was  by  the  Egyptians  and 
Chaldeans,  the  people  of  those  times  had  no  other  helps,  than 
what  common  observation  of  the  very  visible  changes  of  the  sun 
and  moon  afforded,  to  enable  them  to  keep  an  account  of  the  pro- 
gress of  time.  As  far  as  history  establishes  the  point,  the  Egyp- 
tians were  the  first  people  who  divided  the  year  into  twelve 
months.  Herodotus,  who  lived  above  two  thousand  two  hundred 
years  ago,  and  is  the  most  ancient  historian  whose  works  have 
reached  our  time,  says,  they  did  this  by  the  knowledge  they  had  of 
the  stars.  As  to  the  Jews,  there  is  not  one  single  improvement 
in  any  science  or  in  any  scientific  art,  that  they  ever  produced. 
They  were  the  most  ignorant  of  aU  the  illiterate  world.  If  the 
word  of  the  Lord  had  come  to  them,  as  they  pretend,  and  as  the 
bishop  professes  to  believe,  and  that  they  were  to  be  the  harbin- 
gers of  it  to  the  rest  of  the  world  ;  the  Lord  would  have  taught 
them  the  use  of  letters,  and  the  art  of  printing  ;  for  .without 
the  means  of  communicating  the  word  it  could  not  be  communi- 
cated ;  whereas  letters  were  the  invention  of  the  Gentile  world  ; 
and  printing  of  the  modern  world.  But  to  return  to  my  sub- 
ject- 
Before  the  helps  which  the  science  of  astronomy  afforded,  the 
people  as  before  said,  had  no  other,  whereby  to  keep  an  account 
of  the  progress  of  time,  than  what  the  common  and  very  visible 
changes  of  the  sun  and  moon  afforded.  They  saw  that  a  great 
number  of  days  made  a  year,  but  the  account  of  them  was  too 
tedious,  and  too  difficult  to  be  kept  numerically,  from  one  to 
three  hundred  and  sixty  five  ;  neither  did  they  know  the  true 
time  of  a  solar  year.  It  therefore  became  necessary,  for  the  pur- 
pose of  marking  the  progress  of  days,  to  put  them  into  small  par- 
cels, such  as  are  now  called  weeks  ;  and  which  consisted  as 
they  now  do  of  seven  days.  By  this  means  the  memory  was 
assisted  as  it  is  with  us  at  this  day  ;  for  we  do  not  say  of  any 
thing  that  is  past,  that  it  was  fifty,  sixty,  or  seventy  days  ago,  but 
that  it  was  so  many  weeks, or  if  longer  time,  so  many  months.  It 
is  impossible  to  keep  an  account  of  time  without  helps  of  this  kind. 
Julian  Scaliger,  the  inventor  of  the  Julian  period  of  7,983 


OF    LLANDAFF.  265 

years,  produced  by  multiplying  the  cycle  of  the  moon,  the  cycle 
of  the  sun,  and  the  years  of  an  indiction,  19,  28,  15  into  each 
other  ;  says,  that  the  custom  of  reckoning  by  periods  of  seven 
days  was  used  by  the  Assyrians,  the  Egyptians,  the  Hebrews, 
the  people  of  India,  the  Arabs,  and  by  all  the  nations  of  the 
East. 

In  addition  to  what  Scaliger  says,  it  is  evident  that  in  Britain, 
in  Germany,  and  the  north  of  Europe,  they  reckoned  by  periods 
of  seven  days,  long  before  the  book  called  the  bible  was  known 
in  those  parts  ;  and  consequently  that  they  did  not  take  that 
mode  of  reckoning  from  any  thing  written  in  that  book. 

That  they  reckoned  by  periods  of  seven  days,  is  evident 
from  t'heir  having  seven  names  and  no  more  for  the  several 
days  ;  and  which  have  not  the  most  distant  relation  to  any  thing 
in  the  book  of  Genesis,  or  to  that  which  is  called  the  fouith 
commandment. 

Those  names  are  still  retained  in  England,  with  no  other  al- 
teration than  what  has  been  produced  by  moulding  the  Saxon  and 
Danish  languages  into  modern  English. 

1.  Sun-day  from  Sunne  the  sun,  and  dag,  day,  Saxon,  Sondag 
Danish.  The  day  dedicated  to  the  sun. 

.2.  Monday,  that  is,  moonday,  from  Mona,  the  moon,  Saxon, 
Moano,  Danish.     Day  dedicated  to  the  moon. 

3.  Tuesday,  that  is  Tuis-cojs-day.     The  day  dedicated  to  the 
Idol  Tuisco. 

4.  Wednes-day,  that  is  Woden's-day.     The  day  dedicated  to 
Woden,  the  mars  of  the  Germans. 

5.  Thursday,  that  is,  Thor's-day  dedicated  to  the  Idol  Thor. 

6.  Friday,  that  is  Friga's-day.     The   day  dedicated  to  Friga, 
the  Venus  of  the  Saxons. 

Saturday  from  Seaten  (Saturn)  an  Idol  of  the  Saxons  ;  one  of 
the  emblems  representing  time,  which  continually  terminates 
and  renews  itself :  The  last  day  of  the  period  of  seven  days. 
When  we  see  a  certain  mode  of  reckoning  general  among  na- 
tions totally  unconnected,  differing  from  each  other  in  religion 
and  in  government,  and  some  of  them  unknown  to  each  other, 
we  may  be  certain  that  it  arises  from  some  natural  and  common 
cause,  prevailing  alike  over  all,  and  which  strikes  every  one  in 
the  same  manner.  Thus  all  nations  have  reckoned  arithmetic- 
ally by  tens,  because  the  people  of  all  nations  have  ten  fingers. 
If  they  had  more  or  less  than  ten,  the  mode  of  arithmetical  reck- 
oning would  have  followed  that  number,  for  the  fingers  are  a 
natural  numeration  table  to  all  the  world.  I  now  come  to  show 
why  the  period  of  seven  days  is  so  generally  adopted. 

Though  the  sun  is  the  great  luminary  of  the  world,  and  the  ani- 
mating cause  of  all  the  fruits  of  the 'earth,  the  moon  by  renewing 
herself  more  than  twelve  times  oftener  than  the  sun,  which  it  does 
but  once  a  year,  served  the  rustic  world  as  a  natural  Almanac, 
23 


266  PEPLY    TO    THE    BISHOP 

as  the  fingers  served  it  for  a  numeration  table.  All  the  world 
could  see  the  moon,  her  changes,  and  her  monthly  revolutions  ; 
and  their  mode  of  reckoning  time,  was  accommodated  as  nearly 
as  could  possibly  be  done  in  round  numbers,  to  agree  with  the 
changes  of  that  planet,  their  natural  almanac. 

The  Moon  performs  her  natural  revolution  round  the  earth  in 
twenty  nine  days  and  a  half.  She  goes  from  a  new  moon  to  a 
half  moon,  to  a  full  moon,  to  a  half  moon  gibbous  or  convex, 
and  then  to  a  new  moon  again.  Each  of  these  changes  is  per- 
formed in  seven  days  and  nine  hours  ;  but  seven  days  is  the 
nearest  division  in  round  numbers  that  could  be  taken  ;  and  this 
was  sufficient  to  suggest  the  universal  custom  of  reckoning  by 
periods  of  seven  days,  since  it  is  impossible  to  reckon  time  with- 
out some  stated  period. 

How  the  odd  hours  could  be  disposed  of  without  interfering 
with  the  regular  periods  of  seven  days,  in  case  the  ancients  re- 
commenced a  new  Septenary  period  with  every  new  moon,  re- 
quired no  more  difficulty  than  it  did  to  regulate  the  Egyptian 
Calendar  afterwards  of  twelve  months  of  thirty  days  each,  or  the 
odd  hour  in  the  Julian  Calendar,  or  the  odd  days  and  hours  in 
the  French  Calendar.  In  all  cases  it  is  done  by  the  addition  of 
complementary  days  ;  and  it  can  be  done  hi  no  otherwise. 

The  bishop  knows,  that  as  the  Solar  year  does  not  end  at  the 
termination  of  what  we  call  a  day,  but  runs  some  hours  into  the 
next  day,  as  the  quarters  of  the  moon  runs  some  hours  beyond 
seven  days ;  that  it  is  impossible  to  give  the  year  any  fixed  num- 
ber of  days,  that  will  not  in  course  of  years  become  wrong,  and 
make  a  complementary  time  necessary  to  keep  the  nominal  year 
parallel  with  the  solar  year.  The  same  must  have  been  the  case 
with  those  who  regulated  time  formerly  by  lunar  revolutions. — 
They  would  have  to  add  three  days  to  every  second  moon,  or  in 
that  proportion,  in  order  to  make  the  new  moon  and  the  new  week 
commence  together,  like  the  nominal  year  and  the  solar  year. 

Diodorus  of  Sicily,  who,  as  before  said,  lived  before  Christ  was 
born,  in  giving  an  account  of  times  much  anterior  to  his  own, 
speaks  of  years,  of  three  months,  of  four  months,  and  of  six  months. 
These  could  be  of  no  other  than  years  composed  of  lunar  revolu- 
tions, and  therefore  to  bring  the  several  periods  of  seven  days,  to 
agree  with  such  years,  there  must  have  been  complementary  days. 

The  moon  was  the  first  Almanac  the  world  knew  ;  and  the  on- 
ly one  which  the  face  of  the  heavens  afforded  to  common  specta- 
tors. Her  changes  and  her  revolutions  have  entered  into  all  the 
Calendars  that  have  been  known  in  the  known  world. 

The  division  of  the  year  into  twelve  months,  which,  as  before 
shown,  was  first  done  by  the  Egyptians,  though  arranged  with 
astronomical  knowledge,  had  reference  to  the  twelve  moons,  or 
more  properly  speaking,  to  the  twelve  lunar  revolutions  that  ap- 
pear in  the  space  of  a  solar  year  j  as  the  period  of  seven  days  had 


OF    LLANDAFF.  267 

reference  to  one  revolution  of  the  moon.  The  feasts  of  the  Jews 
were,  and  those  of  the  Christian  Church  still  are  regulated  by  the 
moon.  The  Jews  observed  the  feasts  of  the  new  moon  and  full 
moon,  and  therefore  the  period  of  seven  days  was  necessary  to 
them. 

All  the  feasts  of  the  Christian  Church  are  regulated  by  the 
moon.  That  called  Easter  governs  all  the  rest,  and  the  moon 
governs  Easter.  It  is  always  the  first  Sunday  after  the  first  full 
moon  that  happens  after  the  vernal  Equinox,  or  21st  of  March. 

In  proportion  as  the  science  of  astronomy  was  studied  and  im- 
proved by  the  Egyptians  and  Chaldeans,  and  the  solar  year  reg- 
ulated by  astronomical  observations,  the  custom  of  reckoning  by 
lunar  revolutions  became  of  less  use,  and  in  time  discontinued. 
But  such  is  the  harmony  of  all  parts  of  the  machinery  of  the  uni- 
verse, that  a  calculation  made  from  the  motion  of  one  part  will 
correspond  with  some  other. 

The  period  of  seven  days  deduced  from  the  revolution  of  the 
moon  round  the  earth,  corresponded  nearer  than  any  other  period 
of  days  would  do  to  the  revolution  of  the  earth  round  the  sun. 
Fifty-two  periods  of  seven  days  make  364,  which  is  within  one 
day  and  some  odd  hours  of  a  solar  year  ;  and  there  is  no  other 
periodical  number  that  will  do  the  same,  till  we  come  to  the  num- 
ber thirteen,  which  is  too  great  for  common  use,  and  the  num- 
bers before  seven  are  too  small.  The  custom,  therefore,  of  reck- 
oning by  periods  of  seven  days,  as  best  suited  to  the  revolution  of 
the  moon,  applied  with  equal  convenience  to  the  solar  year,  and 
became  united  with  it.  But  the  decimal  division  of  time,  as  reg- 
ulated by  the  French  calendar,  is  superior  to  every  other  method. 

There  is  no  part  of  the  bible,  that  is  supposed  to  have  been  writ- 
ten by  persons  who  lived  before  the  time  of  Josiah,  (which  was  a 
thousand  years  after  the  time  of  Moses,)  that  mentions  any  thing 
about  the  Sabbath,  as  a  day  consecrated  by  that  which  is  called 
the  fourth  commandment,  or  that  the  Jews  kept  any  such  day. 
Had  any  such  day  been  kept,  during  the  thousand  years  of  which 
I  am  speaking,  it  certainly  would  have  been  mentioned  frequently; 
and' that  it  should  never  be  mentioned,  is  strong,  presumptive,  and 
circumstancial  evidence  that  no  such  day  was  kept.  But  mention 
is  often  made  of  the  feast?  of  the  new-moon,  and  of  the  full-moon; 
for  the  Jews,  as  before  shown,  worshipped  the  moon  ;  and  the 
word  sabbath  was  applied  by  the  Jews  to  the  feasts  of  that  plartet, 
and  to  those  of  their  other  deities.  It  is  said  in  Hosea,  chap.  2, 
ver  11,  in  speaking  of  the  Jewish  nation,  "And  I  will  cause  all 
her  mirth  to  cease,  her  feast-days,  her  new-moons  and  her  sab- 
baths, and  all  her  solemn  feasts."  Nobody  will  be  so  foolish  as  to 
contend  that  the  sabbaths  here  spoken  of  are  Mosaic  sabbaths. 
The  construction  of  the  verse  implies  they  are  lunar  sabbaths,  or 
sabbaths  of  the  moon.  It  ought  also  to  be  observed  that  Hose* 
lived  in  the  time  of  Ahaz  and  Hezekiah,  about  seventy  years  be- 


268  REPLY   TO    THE  BISHOP 

fore  the  time  of  Josiah,  when  the  law  called  the  law  of  Moses  is 
said  to  have  been  found  ;  and  consequently,  the  sabbaths  that 
Hosea  speaks  of  are  sabbaths  of  the  Idolatry. 

When  those  priestly  reformers,  (impostors  I  should  call  them) 
Hilkiah,  Ezra,  and  Nehemiah,  began  to  produce  books  under  the 
name  of  the  books  of  Moses,  they  found  the  word  sabbath  in  use  ; 
and  as  to  the  period  of  seven  days,  it  is,  like  numbering  arithmet- 
ically by  tens,  from  time  immemorial.  But  having  found  them  in 
use,  they  continued  to  make  them  serve  to  the  support  of  their 
new  imposition.  They  trumped  up  a  story  of  the  creation  being 
made  in  six  days,  and  of  the  Creator  resting  on  the  seventh,  to  suit 
with  the  lunar  and  chronological  period  of  seven  days  ;  and  they 
manufactured  a  commandment  to  agree  with  both.  Impostors  al- 
ways work  in  this  manner.  They  put  fables  for  originals,  and 
causes  for  effects. 

There  is  scarcely  any  part  of  science,  or  any  thing  in  nature, 
which  those  impostors  and  blasphemers  of  science,  called  priests, 
as  well  Christians  as  Jews,  have  not,  at  some  time  or  other,  per- 
verted, or  sought  to  pervert  to  the  purpose  of  superstition  and 
falsehood.  Every  thing  wonderful  in  appearance,  has  been  as- 
cribed to  angels,  to  devils,  or  to  saints.  Every  thing  ancient  has 
some  legendary  tale  annexed  to  it.  The  common  operations  of 
nature  have  not  escaped  their  practice  of  corrupting  every  thing. 


FUTURE  STATE. 

The  idea  of  a  future  state  was  an  universal  idea  to  all  nations 
except  the  Jews.  At  the  time  and  long  before  Jesus  Christ  and 
the  men  called  his  disciples  were  born,  it  had  been  sublime- 
ly treated  of  by  Cicero  in  his  book  on  old  age,  by  Plato,  Socra- 
tes, Xenophon,  and  other  of  the  ancient  theologists,  whom  the 
abusive  Christian  church  calls  Heathen.  Xenophon  represents 
the  elder  Cyrus  speaking  after  this  manner  : — 

"  Think  not  my  dearest  children,  that  when  I  depart  from  you, 
I  shall  be  no  more  ;  but  remember  that  my  soul,  even  while  I 
lived  among  you,  was  invisible  to  you  ;  yet  by  my  actions  you 
were  sensible  it  existed  in  this  body.  Believe  it  therefore  exist- 
ing still,  though  it  be  still  unseen.  How  quickly  would  the  hon- 
ors of  illustrious  men  perish  after  death,  if  their  souls  performed 
nothing  to  preserve  their  fame  ?  For  my  own  part,  I  could 
never  think  that  the  soul,  while  in  a  mortal  body,  lives  ;  but  when 
departed  from  it,  dies  ;  or  that  its  consciousness  is  lost,  when  it 
is  discharged  out  of  an  unconscious  habitation.  But  when  it  is 
freed  from  all  corporeal  alliance,  it  is  then  that  it  truly  exists." 

Since  then  the  idea  of  a  future  existence  was  universal,  it  may 
be  asked,  what  new  doctrine  does  the  New  Testament  contain  ? 


OF    LLANDAFF,  269 

I  answer,  that  of  corrupting  the  theory  of  the  ancient  theologists, 
by  annexing  to  it  the  heavy  and  gloomy  doctrine  of  the  resurrec- 
tion of  the  body. 

As  to  the  resurrection  of  the  body,  whether  the  same  body  or 
another,  it  is  a  miserable  conceit,  fit  only  to  be  preached  to 
man  as  an  animal.  It  is  not  worthy  to  be  called  doctrine. — Such 
an  idea  never  entered  the  brain  of  any  visionary  but  those  of  the 
Christian  church : — yet  it  is  in  this  that  the  novelty  of  the  New 
Testament  consists.  All  the  other  matters  serve  but  as  props 
to  this,  and  those  props  are  most  wretchedly  put  together. 


MTRACLES. 

The  Christian  church  is  full  of  miracles.  In  one  of  the  churches 
of  Brabant,  they  show  a  number  of  cannon  balls,  which  they  say, 
the  virgin  Mary,  in  some  former  war,  caught  in  her  muslin  apron 
as  they  came  roaring  out  of  the  cannon's  mouth,  and  prevented 
their  hurting  the  Saints  of  her  favourite  army.  She  does  no 
such  feats  now-a-days.  Perhaps  the  reason  is,  that  the  infidels 
have  taken  away  her  muslin  apron.  They  show  also,  between 
Montmatre  and  the  village  of  St.  Dennis,  several  places  where 
they  say  St.  Dennis  stopt  with  his  head  in  his  hands  after  it  had 
been  cut  off  at  Montmatre.  The  Protestants  will  call  those  things 
lies  j  and  where  is  the  proof  that  all  the  other  things  called  mir- 
acles are  not  as  great  lies  as  those. 


[Tliere  appears  to  be  an  omission  here  in  the 

Christ,  say  those  Cabalists,  came  in  the  fulness  of  time.  And 
pray  what  is  the  fulness  of  time  ?  The  words  admit  of  no  idea. 
They  are  perfectly  Cabalistical.  Time  is  a  word  invented  to  de- 
scribe to  our  conception  a  greater  or  less  portion  of  eternity.  It 
may  be  a  minute,  a  portion  of  eternity  measured  by  the  vibration 
of  a  pendulum  of  a  certain  length  :  —  it  may  be  a  day,  a  year,  a 
hundred,  or  a  thousand  years,  or  any  other  quantity.  Those 
portions  are  only  greater  or  less  comparatively. 

The  word  fulness  applies  not  to  any  of  them.  The  idea  of  ful- 
ness of  time  cannot  be  conceived.  A  woman  -with  child  and 
ready  for  delivery,  as  Mary  was  when  Christ  was  born,  may  be 
said  to  have  gone  her  full  time  ;  but  it  is  the  woman  that  is  full, 
not  time. 

It  may  also  be  said  figuratively,  if!  certain  cases,  that  the  times 
are  full  of  events  ;  but  time  itself  is  incapable  of  being  full  of  it- 
self. Ye  hypocrites  !  learn  to  speak  intelligible  language. 

It  happened  to  be  a  time  of  peace  when  they  say  Christ  was 
born  ;  and  what  then  ?  There  had  been  many  such  intervals  ; 
and  have  been  many  such  since.  Time  was  no  fuller  in  any  of 


270  REPLY    TO    THE    BISHOP 

them  than  in  the  other.  If  he  were  he  would  be  fuller  now  than 
he  ever  was  before.  If  he  was  full  then  he  must  be  bursting  now. 
But  peace  or  war  have  relation  to  circumstances,  and  not  to 
time  ;  and  those  Cabalists  would  be  at  as  much  loss  to  make  out 
any  meaning  to  fulness  of  circumstances,  as  to  fulness  of  time  ; 
and  if  they  could,  i(  would  be  fatal  ;  for  fulness  of  circumstances 
would  mean,  when  there  is  no  more  time  to  follow. 

Christ,  therefore,  like  every  other  person,  was  neither  in  the 
fulness  of  one  nor  the  other. 

But  though  we  cannot  conceive  the  idea  of  fulness  of  time, 
because  we  cannot  have  conception  of  a  time  when  there  shall 
be  no  time  ;  nor  of  fulness  of  circumstance,  because  we  cannot 
conceive  a  state  of  existence  to  be  without  circumstances  ;  we 
can  often  see,  after  a  thing  is  past,  if  any  circumstance,  neces- 
sary to  give  the  utmost  activity  and  success  to  that  thing,  was 
wanting  at  the  time  that  thing  took  place.  If  such  a  circum- 
stance was  wanting,  we  may  be  certain  that  the  thing  which  took 
place,  was  not  a  thing  of  God's  ordaining  ;  whose  work  is  always 
perfect  means.  They  tell  us  that  Christ  was  the  Son  of  God  ; 
in  that  case,  he  would  have  known  every  thing  ;  and  he  came 
upon  earth  to  make  known  the  will  of  God  to  man  throughout 
the  whole  earth.  If  this  had  been  true,  Christ  would  have 
known  and  would  have  been  furnished  with  all  the  possible  means 
of  doing  it  ;  and  would  have  instructed  mankind,  or  at  least  his 
apostles,  in  the  use  of  such  of  the  means  as  they  could  use  them- 
selves to  facilitate  the  accomplishment  of  the  mission  ;  conse- 
quently he  would  have  instructed  them  in  the  art  of  printing, 
for  the  press  is  the  tongue  of  the  world  ;  and  without  which  his 
or  their  preaching  was  less  than  a  whistle  compared  to  thunder. 
Since  then  he  did  not  do  this,  he  had  not  the  means  necessary 
to  the  mission  ;  and  consequently  had  not  the  mission. 

They  tell  us  in  the  book  of  Acts,  chap.  ii.  a  very  stupid  story 
of  the  Apostles' having  the  gift  of  tongues  ;  and  clove7i  tongues  of 
fire  descended  and  sat  upon  each  of  them.  Perhaps  it  was  this 
story  of  cloven  tongues  that  gave  rise  to  the  notion  of  slitting 
Jack-daws'  tongues  to  make  them  talk.  Be  that  however  as  it 
may,  the  gifts  of  tongues,  even  if  it  were  true,  would  be  but  of  lit- 
tle use  without  the  art  of  printing.  I  can  sit  in  my  chamber  as  I 
do  while  writing  this,  and  by  the  aid  of  printing,  can  send  the 
thoughts  I  am  writing  through  the  greatest  part  of  Europe,  to  the 
East  Indies,  and  over  all  North  America,  in  a  few  months.  They 
had  not  the  means,  and  the  want  of  means  detects  the  pretended 
mission.  • 

There  are  three  modes  of  communication.  Speaking,  writing 
and  printing.  The  first  is  exceedingly  limited.  A  man's  voice 
can  be  heard  but  a  few  yards  of  distance  ;  and  his  person  can  be 
but  in  one  place. 


OF    LLAiXDAFF.  271 

Writing  is  much  more  extensive  ;  but  the  thing  written  cannot 
be  multiplied  but  at  great  expense,  and  the  multiplication  will  be 
slow  and  incorrect.  Were  there  no  other  means  of  circulating 
what  priests  call  the  word  of  God  (the  Old  and  New  Testament) 
than  by  writing  copies,  those  copies  could  not  be  purchased  at  less 
than  forty  pounds  sterling  each  ;  consequently  but  few  people 
could  purchase  them,  while  the  writers  could  scarcely  obtain  a 
livelihood  by  it.  But  the  art  of  printing  changes  all  the  cases,  and 
opejis  a  scene  as  vast  as  the  world.  It  gives  to  man  a  sort  of  di- 
vine attribute.  It  gives  to  him  mental  omnipresence.  He  can 
be  every  where  and  at  the  same  instant  ;  for  wherever  he  is  read 
he  is  mentally  there.  0 

The  case  applies  not  only  against  the  pretended  mission  of 
Christ  and  his  Apostles,  but  against  every  thing  that  priests  call 
the  word  of  God,  and  against  all  those  who  pretend  to  deliver  it  ; 
for  had  God  ever  delivered  any  verbal  word,  he  would  have  taught 
the  means  of  communicating  it.  The  one  without  the  other  is 
inconsistent  with  the  wisdom  we  conceive  of  the  Creator. 

The  third  chapter  of  Genesis,  verse  21  >  tells  us  that  God  made 
coats  of  skins  and  clothed  Adam  and  Eve.  It  was.  infinitely  more 
important  that  man  should  be  taught  the  art  of  printing,  than  that 
Adam  should  be  taught  to  make  a  pair  of  leather  breeches,  or  his 
wife  a  petticoat. 

There  is  another  matter,  equally  striking  and  important,  that 
connects  itself  with  those  observations  against  this  pretended  word 
of  God,  this  manufactured  book,  called  Revealed  Religion. 

We  know  that  whatever  is  of  God's  doing  is  unalterable  by  man 
beyond  the  laws  which  the  Creator  has  ordained.  We  cannot 
make  a  tree  grow  with  the  root  in  the  air  and  the  fruit  in  the 
ground  ;  we  cannot  make  Iron  into  Gold,  nor  Gold  into  Iron  ;  we 
cannot  make  rays  of  light  shine  forth  rays  of  darkness,  nor  dark- 
ness shine  forth  light.  If  there  were  such  a  thing,  as  a  word  of 
God,  it  would  possess  the  same  properties  which  all  his  other 
works  do.  It  would  resist  destructive  alteration.  But  we  see 
that  the  book  which  they  call  the  word  of  God,  has  not  this  prop- 
erty. That  book  says,  Gen.  chap.  i.  v.  27,  "  So  God  created 
man  in  his  own  image  ;"  but  the  printer  can  make  it  say,  So  man 
created  God  in  his  own  image.  The  words  are  passive  to  every 
transposition  of  them,  or  can  be  annihilated  and  others  put  in  their 
places.  This  is  not  the  case  with  any  "thing  that  is  of  God's  do- 
ing ;  and  therefore  this  book  called  the  word jf  God,  tried  by  the 
same  universal  rule  which  every  other  of  Goers  works  within  our 
reach  can  be  tried  by,  proves  itself  to  be  a  forgery. 

The  bishop  says,  that  "  miracles  are  proper  proofs  of  a  divine  mis- 
sion." Admitted.  But  we  know  that  men,  and  especially  priests, 
can  tell  lies,  and  call  them  miracles.  It  is  therefore  necessary, 
that  the  thing  called  a  miracle  be  proved  to  be  true,  and  also  to 


272  REPLY   TO    THE    BISHOP. 

be  miraculous ;  before  it  can  be  admitted  as  proof  of  the  thing 
called  revelation. 

The  bishop  must  be  a  bad  logician  not  to  know  that  one 
doubtful  thing  cannot  be  admitted  as  proof  that  anothe»  doubtful 
thing  is  true.  It  Would  be  like  attempting  to  prove  a  liar  not  to 
be  a  liar,  by  the  evidence  of  another  who  is  as  great  a  liar  as 
himself. 

Though  Jesus  Christ,  by  being  ignorant  of  the  art  of  printing, 
shows  he  had  not  the  means  necessary  to  a  divine  mission,  and 
consequently  had  no  such  mission  ;  it  does  not  follow  that  if 
he  had  known  that  art,  the  divinity  of  what  they  call  his  mission 
would  be  provedithereby,  any  more  than  it  proved  the  divinity 
of  the  man  who  invented  printing.  Something,  therefore,  be- 
yond printing,  even  if  he  had  known  it,  was  necessary  as  a  mira- 
cle, to  have  proved  that  what  he  delivered  was  the  word  of  God  ; 
and  this  was  that  the  book  in  which  that  word  should  be  contained, 
which  is  now  called  the  Old  and  New  Testament,  should  pos- 
sess the  miraculous  property,  distinct  from  all  human  books,  of 
resisting  alteration.  This  would  be  not  only  a  miracle,  but  an 
ever  existing  and  universal  miracle  ;  .whereas  those  which  they 
tell  us  of,  even  if  they  had  been  true,  were  momentary  and  lo- 
cal ;  they  would  leave  no  trace  behind,  after  the  lapse  of  a  few 
years,  of  having  ever  existed  :  But  this  would  prove,  in  all  ages 
and  in  all  places,  the  book  to  be  divine  and  not  human,  as  effectu- 
ally, and  as  conveniently,  as  aquafortis  proves  gold  to  be  gold  by 
not  being  capable  of  acting  upon  it ;  and  detects  all  other  metals 
and  all  counterfeit  composition,  by  dissolving  them.  Since  then 
the  only  miracle  capable  of  every  proof  is  wanting,  and  which  ev- 
ery thing  that  is  of  divine  origin  possesses  ;  all  the  tales  of  mira- 
cles with  which  the  Old  and  New  Testament  are  filled,  are  fit  on- 
ly for  impostors  to  preach  and  fools  to  believe. 


ORIGIN  OF  FREE-MASONRY. 


PREFACE  BY  THE  EDITOR. 

THIS  tract  is  a  chapter  belonging  to  the  third  part  of  the  Age 
of  Reason,  as  will  be  seen  by  the  references  made  in  it  to  pre- 
ceding articles,  as  forming  a  part  of  the  same  work.  It  was 
culled  from  the  writings  of  Mr.  Paine,  after  his  death,  and  pub- 
lished in  a  mutilated  state,  by  Mrs.  Bonneville,  his  executrix. 
Passages  having  a  reference  to  the  Christian  religion  she  eras- 
ed, wiih  a  view,  no  doubt,  of  accommodating  the  work  to  the  pre- 
judices of  bigotry.  These  however  have  been  restored  from  the 
original  manuscript,  excepting  a  few  lines  which  were  rendered 
illegible. 

The  masonic  society  had  committed  nothing  to  print  until  the 
year  1722,  when  Doct.  Anderson's  book  of  constitutions,  &c. 
was  ordered  by  the  Grand  Lodge  to  be  printed.  Since  that  time 
the  masons  have  published  many  works  respecting  the  fraternity, 
all  of  which,  through  design  or  want  of  information,  tend  to  ob- 
scure and  embarrass  the  subject  ;  and  as  the  society  had  adopted 
the  custom  of  the  Anglo  Saxon  priests,  called  Druids,  to  keep 
their  proceedings  an  entire  secret,  mankind  in  general,  including 
the  greater  portion  of  the  brethren  themselves,  have  remained 
in  utter  ignorance  in  regard  to  its  establishment  and  original  in- 
tention. Various  speculations  therefore  continue  to  be  made  re- 
specting the  origin  of  the  society,  arid  its  views  at  the  time  of  its 
formation  ;  and  Mr.  Paine,  among  the  rest,  with  all  his  sagacity, 
has  suffered  himself  to  be  most  egregiously  deceived  by  such 
writings  of  the  masons  as  had  fallen  into  his  hands.  These  writ- 
ers, in  giving  an  account  of  the  society,  take  up  the  history  of 
architecture  as  far  ,back  as  any  record  of  it  has  survived  the 
wreck  of  time.  Wherever  they  can  trace  in  history,  whether 
true  or  fabulous,  any  account  of  noble  and  grand  structures,  they 
presumptuously  pronounce  them  to  have  been  raised  by  their  so- 
ciety. The  pyramids  of  Egypt,  the  tower  of  Babel  whose  exis- 
tence is  doubted,  and  Solomon's  temple,  about  which  there  has 
probably  been  much  lying,  are  all  claimed  by  them.  For  what 
is  this  ridiculous  parade,  but  to  make  the  uninitiated,  as  well 
as  their  own  members,  few  of  whom  know  any  thing  about  it, 
wonder  at  the  astonishing  antiquity  of  the  institution?  Would 
not  the  advice  of  Pope  apply  in  this  case  ? 

"  Go  !  and  pretend  your  family  is  young, 
Nor  own  your  fathers  have  been  fools  so  long." 


274  PREFACE. 

If  the  antiquity  of  a  sect  or  society  proved  its  utility,  or  that 
it  was  founded  in  correct  principles,  the  religion  taught  by  the 
ancient  Egyptian  priests,  or  Judaism,  ought  to  be  preferred  to 
Christianity. 

There  is  no  possible  use  to  be  derived  from  deception  upon 
this  subject.  The  masonic  society  is  undoubtedly  very  ancient  ; 
having  commenced,  in  the  city  of  York,  in  England,  in  the  early 
part  of  the  tenth  century  of  the  Christian  era  ;  and  from  thence 
it  spread  into  other  parts  of  Europe.  It  was  formed  by  men 
who  had  some  knowledge  of  rude  architecture,  such  as  it  was  at 
that  day,  and  working  masons  ;  and  had  no  other  view  than  im- 
provement in  the  art  or  craft  of  masonry  ;  which  their  writers 
dignify  with  the  title  of  royal  croft,  because  some  of  their  Kings 
have  condescended  to  become  members  of  the  society,  for  the  pur- 
pose, no  doubt,  of  flattering  their  subjects  to  persevere  in  im- 
provements in  the  art  of  building  ;  which  was  useful  to  them,  as 
they  always  stand  in  need  of  palaces,  castles,  and  churches. 
The  society  is  composed  of  free  men,  none  others  are  admitted, 
hence  the  term,  free  masons.  At  first  there  were  but  three  de- 
grees, apprentice,  fellow-craft,  that  is,  one  who  had  served  an 
apprenticeship,  and  was  entitled  to  wages  as  a  journeyman  ;  and 
master-mason.  The  latter  degree  entitled  its  possessor  to  con- 
tract for  building  on  his  own  account.  It  was  not  until  th«  be- 
ginning of  the  eighteenth  century,  that  any  one,  according  to 
the  regulations  of  the  society,  could  be  admitted  a  member, 
who  did  nof labour  at  the  trade  of  masonry,  or  knew  something 
of  architecture  ;  although,  perhaps,  through  favour,  some  were 
smuggled  in  who  had  very  little  or  no  knowledge  of  that  art,* 

As  to  the  mysteries  of  the  craft,  so  much  talked  of,  they  are 
of  the  same  nature  as  those  of  carpentry,  or  any  other  trade  ; 
and  consist  in  a  knowledge  of  the  art  of  masonry  ;  which  was 
thought  much  more  of  at  the  time  the  society  was  instituted,  than 
at  the  present  day.  The  trifling  rites  and  ceremonies,  which  the 
masons  borrowed  from  the  ancient  Druids,  are  mere  allegories, 

*  The  Author  of  this  Preface,  although  he  has  thrown  considerable  light  upon  the 
subject,  has  been  himself  deceived  by  masonic  writers  in  respect  to  the  origin  of  the 
existing  society  of  Freemasons;  which  is  entirely  speculative,  and  was  instituted  at 
the  time  when,  he  says,  persons  not  being  masons  by  trade  were  first  admitted  as 
members,  viz.  in  the  early  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  Late  writers  have  shown, 
that  the  first  Lodge  ever  established  upon  the  existing  speculative  plan,  was  formed  in 
London,  in  1717 ;  and  that  a  similar  society  was  formed  in  Scotland,  in  1736.  These 
two  lodges  soon  began  to  quarrel  about  precedency  ;  each  endeavouring  to  prove  its 
priority  by  existing  records  of  the  humble  mechanical  societies  of  labouring  masons, 
which  had  been  established  in  both  kingdoms  many  centuries  before.  The  Yorkites, 
in  England,  it  is  believed,  produced  the  oldest  documents  :  both  societies,  however, 
continued  to  grant  dispensations  for  forming  lodges  in  foreign  countries. 

From  these  two  sources  all  the  Freemason  societies,  upon  the  present  establishment, 
owe  their  origin.  Nothing  of  the  kind  ever  existed  in  Europe,  or  any  other  quarter 
of  the  world,  previously  to  1717.  Although  ostensibly  founded  upon  a  society  of  real 
working  masons,  nothing  is  now  taught  in  it,  nor  ever  has  been,  of  that  art,  or  any 
other  art  or  science. — ED. 


PREFACE.  275 

and  symbolical  signs  and  words,  serving  as  a  medium  of  secresy, 
by  means  of  which  the  members  of  the  society  are  enabled  to 
recognize  each  other. 

There  is  no  more  propriety  in  prefixing  the  term  free  to  ma- 
sonry, than  there  is  to  carpentry,  smithery,  or  to  any  other  trade. 
It  is  inapplicable  to  any  art  or  trade  ;  although  it  may  be  applied 
to  the  professors  of  it.  At  the  time  the  free  masons'  society  was 
first  instituted  in  England,  there  were  in  that  kingdom  both  free 
men  and  slaves  in  all  the  mechanical  trades  then  in  use.  Dr. 
Henry,  in  his  history  of  Great  Britain,  giving  an  account  of  the 
different  ranks  of  people,  &c.  from  449  to  10.66,  after  stating  that 
slavery  had  been  in  some  degree  meliorated,  observes,  "  But  af- 
ter all  these  mitigations  of  the  severities  of  slavery,  the  yoke  of 
servitude  was  still  very  heavy,  and  the  greater  part  of  the  labour- 
ers, mechanics,  and  common  people,  groaned  under  that  yoke  at 
the  conclusion  of  this  period."  Which  was  140  years  after  the 
establishment  of  the  masonic  society. 

All  the  writers  upon  this  subject,  who  are  members  of  the  so- 
ciety, endeavour  to  conceal  the  origin  and  object  of  it.  For 
what  reason  it  is  difficult  to  imagine,  except  it  be  to  keep  the 
world  in  amazement  respecting  it.  Or,  perhaps,  their  pride  in- 
duces them  to  contemn  the  humble,  though  laudable  and  useful 
purposes  for  which  the  institution  was  formed.  Enough  however 
has  appeared  in  the  old  records  which  they  have  published  to  es- 
tablish the  view  I  have  taken  of  it,  and  which,  when  I  com- 
menced this  preface,  I  intended  to  have  inserted  ;  but  finding 
they  would  extend  to  too  great  a  length,  I  am  under  the  neces- 
sity of  omitting  them.  I  will  however  make  a  few  extracts  from 
the  old  charges  of  the  Free  and  Accepted  Masons,  collected 
from  their  old  records,  at  the  command  of  the  Grand  Master,  by 
James  Anderson,  D.  D.  Approved  by  the  Grand  Lodge,  an'd 
ordered  to  be  printed  in  the  first  edition  of  the  book  of  consti- 
tutions, on  March  25,  1722. 

"  Concerning  God  and  religion.  A  mason  is  obliged,  by  his 
tenure,  to  obey  the  moral  law  ;  and  if  he  rightly  understands  the 
art,  he  will  never  be  a  stupid  atheist,  nor  an  irreligious  libertine. 
But  though  in  ancient  times  masons  were  charged  in  every 
country  to  be  of  the  religion  of  that  country  or  nation,  whatever 
it  was,  yet  it  is  now  thought  more  expedient  only  to  oblige  them 
to  that  religion  in  which  all  men  agree,  leaving  their  particular 
opinions  to  themselves  ;  that  is,  to  be  good  men  and  true,  or 
men  of  honour  and  honesty,  by  whatever  denominations  or  per- 
suasions they  may  be  distinguished  ;  whereby  masonry  becomes 
the  centre  of  union,  and  the  means  of  conciliating  true  friend- 
ship among  persons,  that  must  have  remained  at  a  perpetual 
distance.* 

*  William  Preston,  past  master  of  the  lodge  of  antiquity,  in  his  Illustrations  of 
masonry,  makes  the  following  remarks  on  the  same  subject.  "  The  spirit  of  the  ful- 


276  PREFACE. 

Of  Lodges.  A  lodge  is  a  place  where  masons  assemble  and 
work  ;  hence  that  assembly,  or  duly  organized  society  of  ma- 
sons, is  called  a  lodge  ;  and  every  brother  ought  to  belong  to 
one,  and  to  be  subject  to  its  By-Laws  and  the  general  regu- 
lations. 

The  persons  admitted  members  of  a  lodge,  must  be  good  and 
true  men,  free-born,  and  of  mature  and  discreet  age,  no  bond- 
men, no  women,  no  immoral  or  scandalous  men,  but  of  good 
report. 

Of  apprentices.  Candidates  may  know,  that  no  master  should 
take  an  apprentice,  unless  he  has  sufficient  employment  for  him, 
and  unless  he  be  a  perfect  youth,  having  no  maim  or  defect  in 
his  body,  that  may  render  him  incapable  of  learning  the  art,  of 
serving  his  master's  lord,  and  of  being  made  a  brother,  and  then 
a  fellow-craft  in  due  time,  even  after  he  has  served  such  a  term 
of  years,  as  the  custom  of  the  country  directs  ;  and  that  he 
should  be  descended  of  honest  parents. 

Of  tfie  management  of  the  croft  In  ivorking.  All  Masons  shall 
work  honestly  on  working  days,  that  they  may  live  creditably  on 
holy  days  ;  and  the  time  appointed  by  the  law  of  the  land,  or 
confirmed  by  custom,  shall  be  observed. 

The  most  expert  of  the  fellow-craftmen  shall  be  chosen  or  ap- 
pointed the  master  or  overseer  of  the  Lord's  work  ;  who  is  to 
be  called  master  by  those  that  work  under  him.  The  crafts- 
men are  to  avoid  all  ill  language,  and  to  call  each  other  by  no 
disobliging  name,  but  brother  or  fellow  ;  and  to  behave  them- 
selves courteously  within  and  without  the  lodge. 

The  master,  knowing  himself  to  be  able  of  cunning,  shall  un- 
dertake the  Lord's  work  as  reasonably  as  possible,  and  truly  dis- 
pend  his  goods  as  if  they  were  his  own  ;  nor  give  more  wages 
to  any  brother  or  apprentice,  than  he  really  may  deserve. 

Both  the  master  and  the  masons  receiving  their  wages  justly, 
shall  be  faithful  to  the  Lord,  and  honestly  finish  their  work, 
whether  task  or  journey  :  nor  put  the  work  to  task  that  hath 
been  accustomed  to  journey. 

None  shall  discover  envy  at  the  prosperity  of  a  brother,  nor 
supplant  him,  or  put  him  out  of  his  work,  if  he  be  capable  to  fin- 
ish the  same  ;  for  no  man  can  finish  another's  work  so  much  to 
the  Lord's  profit,  unless  he  be  thoroughly  acquainted  with  the 
designs  and  draughts  of  him  that  began  it. 

When  a  fellow-craftnman  is  chosen  warden  of  the  work  under 
the  master,  he  shall  be  true  both  to  master  and  fellows,  shall 

minating  priest  will  be  tamed  ;  and  a  Amoral  brother,  though  of  a  different  persuasion, 
engage  his  esteem  :  for  mutual  toleration  in  religious  opinions  is  one  of  the  most  dis- 
tinguishing and  valuable  characteristics  of  the  craft.  As  all  religions  teach  morality, 
if  a  brother  be  found  to  act  the  part  of  a  truly  honest  man,  his  private  speculative 
opinions  are  left  to  God  and  himself.  Thus,  through  the  influence  of  masonry,  which 
is  reconcilable  to  the  best  policy,  all  those  disputes  which  embitter  life,  and  sour  the 
tempers  of  men,  are  avoided*" 


PJIEFACE.  277 

carefully  oversee  the  work  in  the  master's  absence,  to  the  Lord's 
profit  ;  and  his  brethren  shall  obey  him. 

All  masons  employed,  shall  meekly  receive  their  wages  with- 
out murmuring  or  mutiny,  and 'not  desert  the  master  till  the  work 
is  finished. 

A  younger  brother  shall  be  instructed  in  working,  to  prevent 
spoiling  the  materials  for  want  of  judgment,  and  for  increasing 
and  continuing  of  brotherly  love. 

All  the  tools  used  in  working  shall  be  approved  by  the  Grand 
Lodge. 

No  labourer  shall  be  employed  in  the  proper  work  of  mason- 
ry ;  nor  shall  Free  Masons  work  with  those  that  are  not  Free, 
without  an  urgent  necessity  ;  nor  shall  they  teach  labourers 
and  unaccepted  masons,  as  they  should  teach  a  brother  .or 
fellow. 

Of  behaviour  in  the  Lodge  while  constituted:  If  any  complaint 
be  brought,  the  brother  found  guilty  shall  stand  to  the  award  and 
determination  of  the  lodge,  who  are  the  proper  and  competent 
judges  of  all  such  controversies,  (unless  you  carry0  it  by  appeal 
to  the  Grand  Lodge)  and  to  whoni  they  ought  to  be  referred, 
unless  a  Lord's  work  be  hindered  the  mean  while,  in  which  case 
a  particular  reference  may  be  made  ;  but  you  must  never  go  to 
law  about  what  concerneth  masonry,  without  an  absolute  neces- 
sity apparent  to  the  lodge. 

Behaviour  in  presence  of  strangers  not  masons.  You  shall  be 
cautious  in  your  words  aitd  carriage,  that  the  most  penetrating 
stranger  shall  not  be  able  to  discover  or  find  out  what  is  not  pro- 
per to  be  intimated  ;  and  sometimes  you  shall  divert  a  discourse, 
and  manage  it  prudently  for  the  honour  of  the  worshipful  frater- 
nity. 

Behaviour  at  home,  and  in  your  neighbourhood..  You  are  to  act 
as  becomes  a  moral  and  wise  man  ;  particularly,  not  to  let  your 
family,  friends,  and  neighbours  know  the  concerns  of  the  Lodge, 
&c.  but  wisely  to  consult  your  own  honour,  and  that  of  the  an- 
cient brotherhood.  You  must  also  consult  your  health,  by  not 
continuing  together  too  late,  or  too  long  from  home,  after  lodge 
hours  are  past  ;  and  by  avoiding  of  gluttony  and  drunkenness 
that  your  families  be  not  neglected  or'  injured,  nor  you  disabled 
from  working. 

Behaviour  towards  a  strange  brother.  You  are  cautiously  to 
examine  him,  in  such  a  method  as  prudence  shall  direct  you,  that 
you  may  not  be  imposed  upon  by  an  ignorant  false  pretender, 
whom  you  are  to  reject  with  contempt  and  derision,  and  beware 
of  giving  him  any  hints  of  knowledge. 

But  if  you  discover  him  to  be  a  true  and  genuine  brother,  you 
are  to  respect  him  accordingly  ;  and  if  he  is  in  want,  you  must 
relieve  him  if  you  can,  or  else  direct  him  how  he  may  be  reliev- 
ed ;  you  must  employ  him  some  days,  or  else  recommend  him 
24 


278  PREFACE. 

to  be  employed.  But  you  are  not  charged  to  do  beyond  your 
ability,  only  to  prefer  a  poor  brother  that  is  a  good  man  and  true, 
before  any  other  poor  people  in  the  same  circumstances." 

All  the  old  charges  have  a  reference  to  Free  Masons  in  the 
capacity  of  labourers,  and  as  "  good  men  and  /rwe,"  and,  no 
doubt,  had  a  beneficial  effect.  But  the  substance  has  been  lost 
sight  of,  and  the  skeleton,  or  shadow,  only  retained.  The  mum- 
mery of  the  Druidical  priests,  with  infinite  additions  of  the  same 
cast,  is  cherished  as  the  desideratum  of  knowledge,  calculated 
to  complete  the  sum  of  human  happiness  and  perfection.  The 
corruptions  of  the  Society  seem  to  have  kept  pace  with  those 
of  the  Christian  religion.  It  is  at  this  day  as  different  to  what  it 
was,  as  the  Christianity  now  professed  is  to  the  religion  taught  by 
Jesus  Christ.  In  his  time  there  were  no  Doctors  of  Divinity — 
Right  Reverend  Fathers  in  God,  nor  their  Holinesses  the  Popes. 
Neither  were  there,  in  the  Society  of  Free  Masons,  at  its  com- 
mencement, any  Grand  Secretaries — Grand  Treasurers — Knights 
of  Malta — Captain  "Generals — Generalissimos — Most  Excellent 
Scribes — Most  Excellent  High  Priests — Most  Excellent  Kings, 
&c.  &c.*  To  which  might  now,  perhaps,  very  appropriately  be 
added,  Grand  bottle  holder  and  cork  drawer. 

The  admission  into  the  society  of  kings,  princes,  noblemen, 
bishops,  and  doctors  in  divinity,  as  patrons  of  the  institution,  has 
probably  been  the  cause  of  so  great  change.  These  men,  it 
may  be  presumed,  brought  much  of  their  consequence  with 
them  into  the  Lodge,  and  were,  no  doubt,  addressed  in  a  manner 
suitable  to  their  supposed  dignity  in  other  stations.  At  any  rate, 
by  whatever  means  these  high  sounding  titles  may  have  been 
introduced,  they  appear  ridiculous  when  applied  to  members  of 
an  institution  founded  for  such  purpose  as  that  of  the  Masonic 
Society,  and  ought  to  be  abandoned. 

It  is  difficult,  at  this  time,  for  members  of  the  Society,  or  any 
body  else,  to  say  what  benefit  is  to  be  derived  from  the  magical 
arts  pretended  to  be  practised  in  the  Lodges.  The  mystic  rites 
and  ceremonies  of  the  Egyptian  priests,  handed  down  to  the 
Druids  by  Pythagoras  ;  the  miraculous  stories  related  of  the 
ancient  Jews  ;  and  the  legendary  tales  of  Roman  Catholic  su- 
perstition, fruitful  sources  of  imposition,  have  been  ransacked  to 
find  subjects  for  new  degrees  to  be  tacked  to  the  Society  of 
Free  JMasons.  I  have  in  my  possession  a  list  of  forty-three  de- 
grees in  what  is  called  Free-Masonry  ;  one  of  which  is  the  or- 
der of  the  Holy  Ghost. 

If,  as  here  represented,  all  this  mystical  nonsense  has  been 
obtruded  into  the  Society,  it  may  be  asked,  why  do  men  of  sense 
attach  themselves  to  it  ?  I  answer,  many  retire  from  it  after  tak- 
ing two  or  three  degrees  ;  some  have  political  or  other  sinister 

*  This  is  true,  if  reference  be  made  to  what  it  was,  when  under  the  management 
of  the  real  masons,  the  operatives  previously  to  the  year  1717. 


PREFACE.  279 

views  which  retain  them  ;  and,  furthermore,  most  men  are  fond 
of  distinction  in  some  way.  Any  man,  of  common  understand- 
ing, by  being  punctual  at  the  meetings,  and  paying  strict  atten- 
tion to  the  ceremonies,  may  become  a  Warden,  that  is,  overseer, 
or  some  other  Grand  officer,  even  that  oC Most  Worshipful  Grand 
Master  ;  and  in  the  mean  time,  keep  mounting  up  the  ladder, 
from  mystery  to  mystery,  till  he  arrives  at  the  forty-third  degree 
of  perfection  :  which,  however,  in  rny  opinion,  cannot  be  of  the 
least  possible  advantage  to  him  here  or  hereafter,  any  further 
than  the  consequence  it  may  give  him.  As  to  those  who  serve 
in  the  ranks,  they  probably  consider  themselves  sufficiently 
honoured  by  being  hailed  as  Brothers  by  those  whom  they 
think  their  superiors,  and  permitted  to  parade  the  streets  with 
ribbands  and  white  aprons,  to  the  amazement  of  the  profane 
vulgar. 

Notwithstanding  the  remarks  I  have  made,  I  am  by  no  means 
inimical  to  the  Masonic  Society  :  for  I  believe  it  to  be  a  liberal, 
social  institution,  in  which  persons  of  the  most  opposite  opinions 
on  religious  and  political  subjects  associate  in  the  utmost  har- 
mony. By  these  friendly  meetings,  it  is  to  be  presumed,  that 
party  spirit,  both  in  politics  and  religion,  loses  much  of  its  asper- 
ity among  the  members  ;  and  that  those,  who  otherwise  might 
have  entertained  hostile  feelings  towards  each  other,  become 
friends.  In  this  point  of  view,  the  Society  deserves  to  be  held 
in  the  highest  estimation.  For  however  laudable  zeal  may  be 
in  a  just  cause,  when  carried  to  excess,  so  as  to  excite  personal 
ill-will  towards  others  of  contrary  opinions,  it  degenerates  into 
its  kindred  vice,  leading  to  hatred  and  persecution.  No  good 
reason  can  be  given  why  men  of  the  same  or  similar  societies 
should  entertain  greater  partiality  for  one  another,  than  for  oth- 
ers of  their  fellow-men,  any  further  than  their  merits  when  known 
may  deserve  ;  and  to  this  it  is  generally  limited  among  men  of 
sense  ;  still,  in  consequence  of  the  obligations  by  which  Masons 
are  bound  to  each  other,  and  a  sort  of  bigotry  in  many,  this  par- 
tiality has  had  its  good  effects  in  mitigating  the  evils  of  Avar  ; 
and,  for  men  who  travel,  a  diploma  from  a  Lodge  has  passed  as 
a  letter  of  recommendation  in  foreign  countries. 

As  a  charitable  institution,  the  Masonic  Society  ought  to  be 
held  in  high  consideration.  The  relief  it  grants  to  its  members 
and  their  families  in  distress,  is  very  considerable.  But,  unfor- 
tunately, as  I  am  told,  its  means  are  very  much  exhausted  by 
expenses  incurred  for  refreshments  at  the  regular  meetings.  If 
each  member  were  required  to  pay  for  what  he  consumes  at 
those  meetings,  the  Society,  in  consequence  of  its  numbers,  by 
its  income  arising  from  annual  contributions,  fees  of  initiation, 
8cc.  would  be  enabled  to  do  more  in  charity,  perhaps,  than  any 
private  society  in  existence. 


280  PRE-FACE. 

As  to  what  Mr.  Paine  has  said  upon  this  abstruse  subject,  I 
take  the  liberty  of  observing,  that,  in  my  opinion,  notwithstanding 
the  talents  he  has  bestowed  upon  it,  and  the  interest  he  has  given 
to  it,  his  remarks,  made  doubtless  in  the  utmost  sincerity,  are 
calculated  to  perplex  and  embarrass  readers  not  conversant  in 
these  matters,  as  much  as  those  of  any  other  author,  whose  de- 
sign was  to  involve  it  in  unintelligible  mystery. 

"  In  thoughts  more  elevate,  he  reasoned  high, 
But  found  no  end,  in  wand'ring  mazes  lost  " 


ORIGIJV  OF  FREE-MASOJYRY. 


IT  is  always  understood  that  Free-Masons  have  a  secret  whicn 
they  carefully  conceal  ;  but  from  every  thing  that  can  be  collect- 
ed from  their  own  accounts  of  Masonary,  their  real  secret  is  no 
other  than  their  origin,  which  but  few  of  them  understand  ;  and 
those  who  do,  envelope  it  in  mystery. 

The  Society  of  Masons  are  distinguished  into  three  classes  or 
degrees.  1st.  The  Entered  Apprentice.  2d.  The  Fellow- 
Craft.  3d.  The  Master  Mason. 

The  entered  apprentice  knows  but  little  more  of  Masonry, 
than  the  use  of  signs  and  tokens,  and  certain  steps  and  words, 
by  which  Masons  can  recognize  each  other,  without  being  dis- 
covered by  a  person  who  is  not  a  Mason.  The  fellow-craft  is 
not  much  better  instructed  in  Masonry,  than  the  entered  appren- 
tice. It  is  only  in  the  Master  Mason's  lodge,  that  whatever 
knowledge  remains  of  the  origin  of  Masonary  is  preserved  and 
concealed. 

In  1730,  Samuel  Pritchard,  member  of  a  constituted  lodge  in 
England,  published  a  treatise,  entitled  Masonry  Dissected ;  and 
made  oath  before  the  Lord  Mayor  of  London,  that  it  was  a  true 
copy. 

"  Samuel  Pritchard  maketh  oath  that  the  copy  hereunto  an- 
nexed is  a  true  and  genuine  copy  in  every  particular." 

In  his  work  he  has  given  the  catechism,  or  examination,  in 
question  and  answer,  of  the  apprentices,  the  fellow-craft,  and 
the  Master  Mason.  There  was  no  difficulty  in  doing  this,  as  it 
is  mere  form. 

In  his  introduction  he  says,  "  the  original  institution  of  Mason- 
ry consisted  in  the  foundation  of  the  liberal  arts  and  sciences, 
but  more  especially  in  Geometry,  for  at  the  building  of  the  Tower 
of  Babel,  the  art  and  mystery  of  Masonry  was  first  introduced, 
and  from  thence  handed  down  by  Euclid,  a  worthy  and  excel- 
lent mathematician  of  the  Egyptians  ;  and  he  communicated  it 
to  Hiram,  the  Master  Mason  concerned  in  building  Solomon's 
Temple  in  Jerusalem." 

Besides  the  absurdity  of  deriving  Masonry  from  the  building 
of  Babel,  where  according  to  the  story,  the  confusion  of  lan- 
guages prevented  the  builders  understanding  each  other,  and 
consequently  of  communicating  any  knowledge  they  had  there, 
is  a  glaring  contradiction  in  point  of  chronology  in  the  account  he 
gives. 


282  ORIGIN    OF    rilEE-MASONRY. 

Solomon's  Temple  was  built  and  dedicated  1004  years  before 
the  Christian  era  ;  and  Euclid,  as  may  be  seen  in  the  tables  of 
chronology,  lived  277  years  before  the  same  era.  It  was  there- 
fore impossible  that  Euclid  could  communicate  any  thing  to  Hiram, 
since  Euclid  did  not  live  till  700  years  after  the  time  of  Hiram. 

In  1783,  Captain  Goerge  Smith,  inspector  of  the  Royal  Artil- 
lery Academy  at  Woolwich,  in  England,  and  Provincial  Grand 
Master  of  Masonry  for  the  county  of  Kent,  published  a  treatise 
entitled,  The  Use  and  Abuse  of  Free-Masonry. 

In  his  chapter  of  the  antiquity  of  Masonry,  he  makes  it  to  be 
coeval  with  creation.  u  When,"  says  he,  "  the  sovereign  archi- 
tect raised  on  Masonic  principles  the  beauteous  globe,  and  com- 
manded that  master  science  Geometry,  to  lay  the  planetary  world, 
and  to  regulate  by  its  laws  the  whole  stupendous  system  in  just 
unerring  proportion,  rolling  round  the  central  Sun." 

"  But,"  continues  he,  "  I  am  not  at  liberty  publicly  to  undraw 
the  curtain,  and  thereby  to  descant  on  this  head  ;  it  is  sacred, 
and  will  ever  remain  so  ;  those  who  are  honoured  with  the  trust 
will  not  reveal  it,  and  those  who  are  ignorant  of  it  cannot  betray 
it."  By  this  last  part  of  the  phrase,  Smith  means  the  two  infe- 
rior classes,  the  fellow-craft  and  the  entered  apprentice,  for  he 
says,  in  the  next  page  of  his  work,  t(  It  is  not  every  one  that  is 
barely  initiated  into  Free-Masonry  that  is  entrusted  with  all  the 
mysteries  thereto  belonging  ;  they  are  not  attainable  as  things  of 
course,  nor  by  every  capacity." 

The  learned,  but  unfortunate  Doctor  Dodd,  Grand  Chaplain 
of  Masonry,  in  his  oration  at  the  dedication  of  Free-Mason's 
Hall,  London,  traces  Masonry  through  a  variety  of  stages.  Ma- 
sons, says  he,  are  well  informed  from  their  own  private  and  inte- 
rior records^  that  the  building  of  Solomon's  Temple  is  an  impor- 
tant era,  fiom  whence  they  derive  many  mysteries  of  their  art. 
"Now  (says  he),  be  it  remembered  that  this  great  event  took 
place  above  1000  years  before  the  Christian  era,  and  consequent- 
ly more  than  a  century  before  Homer,  the  first  of  the  Grecian 
Poets  wrote  ;  and  above  five  centuries  before  Pythagoras  brought 
from  the  east  his  sublime  system  of  truly  masonic  instruction  to 
illuminate  our  western  world. 

"  But  remote  as  this  period  is,  we  date  not  from  thence  the 
commencement  of  our  art.  For  though  it  might  owe  to  the  wise 
and  glorious  King  of  Israel,  some  of  its  many  mystic  forms  and 
hieroglyphic  ceremonies,  yet  certainly  the  art  itself  is  coeval  with 
man,  the  great  subject  of  it. 

"  We  trace,"  continues  he,  "  its  footsteps  in  the  most  distant, 
the  most  remote  ages  and  nations  of  the  world.  We  find  it 
amongst  the  first  and  most  celebrated  civilizers  of  the  East. 
We  deduce  it  regularly  from  the  first  astronomers  on  the  plains 
of  Chaldea,  to  the  wise  and  mystic  kings  and  priests  of  Egypt, 
the  sages,  of  Greece,  and  the  philosophers  of  Rome." 


ORIGIN    OF    FREE-MASONRY.  283 

From  these  reports  and  declarations  of  Masons  of  the  high- 
est order  in  the  institution,  we  see  that  Masonry,  without  pub- 
licly declaring  so,  lays  claim  to  some  divine  communication  from 
the  Creator,  in  a  manner  different  from,  and  unconnected  with, 
the  book  which'  the  Christians  call  the  Bible  ;  and  the  natural 
result  from  this  is,  that  Masonry  is  derived  from  some  very  an- 
cient religion,  wholly  independent  of,  and  unconnected  with  that 
book. 

To  come  then  at  once  to  the  point,  Masonry  (as  I  shall  show 
from  the  customs,  ceremonies,  hieroglyphics,  and  chronology  of 
Masonry)  is  derived,  and  is  the  remains  of  the  religion  of  the  an- 
cient Druids  ;  who,  like  the  magi  of  Persia  and  the  priests  of 
Heliopolis  in  Egypt,  were  priests  of  the  Sun.  They  paid  worship 
to  this  great  luminary,  as  the  great  visible  agent  of  a  great  invis- 
ible first  cause,  whom  they  styled,  Time  without  limits. 

The  Christian  religion  and  Masonry  have  one  and  the  same 
common  origin,  both  are  derived  from  the  worship  of  the  sun  ; 
the  difference  between  their  origin  is,  that  the  Christian  religion 
is  a  parody  on  the  worship  of  the  sun,  in  which  they  put  a  man 
whom  they  call  Christ,  in  the  place  of  the  sun,  and  pay  him  the 
same  adoration  which  was  originally  paid  to  the  sun,  as  I  have 
shown  in  the  chapter  on  the  origin  of  the  Christian  religion.* 

In  Masonry  many  of  the  ceremonies  of  the  Druids  are  pre- 
served in  their  original  state,  at  least  without  any  parody.  With 
them  the  sun  is  still  the  sun  ;  and  his  image  in  the  form  of  the 
sun,  is  the  great  emblematical  ornament  of  Masonic  Lodges  and 
Masonic  dresses.  It  is  the  central  figure  on  their  aprons,  and 
they  wear  it  also  pendant  on  the  breast  in  their  lodges  and  in 
their  processions.  It  has  the  figure  of  a  man,  as  at  the  head  of 
the  sun,  as  Christ  is  always  represented. 

At  what  period  of  antiquity,  or  in  what  nation,  this  religion 
w^|  first  established,  is  lost  in  the  labyrinth  of  unrecorded  times. 
It  is  generally  ascribed  to  the  ancient  Egyptians,  the  Babyloni- 
ans and  Chaldeans,  and  reduced  afterwards  to  a  system  regulated 
by  the  apparent  progress  of  the  sun  through  the  twelve  signs  of 
Zodiac  by  Zoroaster  the  lawgiver  of  Persia,  from  whence 
Pythagoras  brought  it  into  Greece.  It  is  to  these  matters  Dr. 
Dodd  refers  in  the  passage  already  quoted  from  his  oration. 

The  worship  of  the  sun,  as  the  great  visible  agent  of  a  great 
invisible  first  cause,  time  without  limits,  spread  itself  over  a  con- 
siderable part  of  Asia  and  Africa,  from  thence  to  Greece  and 
Rome,  through  all  ancient  Gaul,  and  into  Britain  and  Ireland. 

Smith,  in  his  chapter  on  the  antiquity  of  Masonry  in  Britain, 
says,  that  "  notwithstanding  the  obscurity  which  envelopes  ma- 
sonic history  in  that  country,  various  circumstances  contribute  to 

s^ 

*  Referring  to  an  unpublished  portion  of  this  work  of  which  this  chapter  forms  a 
part. 


284  ORIGIN    OF    FREE-MASONRY. 

prove  that  Free-Masonry  was  introduced  into  Britain  about  1030 
years  before  Christ." 

It  cannot  be  Masonry  in  its  present  state  that  Smith  here 
alludes  to.  The  Druids  flourished  in  Britain  at  the  period  he 
speaks  of,  and  it  is  from  them  that  Masonry  is  descended.  Smith 
has  put  the  child  in  the  place  of  the  parent. 

It  sometimes  happens,  as  well  in  writing  as  in  conversation, 
that  a  person  lets  slip  an  expression  that  serves  to  unravel  what 
he  intends  to  conceal,  and  this  is  the  case  with  Smith,  for  in  the 
same  chapter  he  says,  "  The  Druids,  when  they  committed  any 
thing  to  writing,  used  the  Greek  alphabet,  and  I  am  bold  to  as- 
sert that  the  most  perfect  remains  of  the  Druid's  rites  and  cere- 
monies are  preserved  in  the  customs  and  ceremonies  of  the  Ma- 
sons that  are  to  be  found  existing  among  mankind.  "  My  breth- 
ren" says  he,  "  may  be  able  to  trace  them  with  greater  exactness 
than  I  am  at  liberty  to  explain  to  the  public." 

This  is  a  confession  from  a  Master  Mason,  without  intending 
it  to  be  so  understood  by  the  public,  that  Masonry  is  the  remains 
of  the  religion  of  the  Druids  ;  the  reasons  for  the  Masons  keep- 
ing this  a  secret  I  shall  explain  in  the  course  of  this  work. 

As  the  study  and  contemplation  of  the  Creator  in  the  works 
of  the  creation,  of  which,  the  sun  as  the  great  visible  agent  of 
that  Being,  was  the  visible  object  of  the  adoration  of  Druids,  all 
their  religious  rights  and  ceremonies  had  reference  to  the  appa- 
rent progress  of  the  sun  through  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac, 
and  his  influence  upon  the  earth.  The  Masons  adopt  the  same 
practices.  The  roof  of  their  temples  or  lodges  is  ornamented 
with  a  sun,  and  the  floor  is  a  representation  of  the  variegated 
face  of  the  earth,  either  by  carpeting  or  by  Mosaic  work. 

Free-Masons'  Hall,  in  Great  Queen-street,  Lincoln's  Inn 
Fields,  London,  is  a  magnificent  building,  and  cost  upwards  of 
12;000  pounds  sterling.  Smith,  in  speaking  of  this  buildiag, 
says,  (page  152.)  "The  roof  of  this  magnificent  hall  is,  in  all 
probability,  the  highest  piece  of  finished  architecture  in  Europe. 
In  the  centre  of  this  roof,  a  most  resplendent  sun  is  represented 
in  burnished  gold,  surrounded  with  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodi- 
ac, with  their  respective  characters  : 


op  Aries 

y  Taurus 

n  Gemini 

25  Cancer 

SI  Leo 

TTJJ  Virgo 


=£=  Libra 

NI  Scorpio 

t  Sagittarius 

V?  Capricornus 

XX  Aquarius 

X  Pisces 


After  giving  this  description,  he  says,  "The  emblematical 
meaning  of  the  sun  is  well  known  to  the  enlightened  and  inquis- 
itive Free-Mason  :  and  as  the  real  sun  is  situated  in  the  centre 


ORIGIN    OF     FREE-MASONRY.  285 

of  the  universe,  so  the  emblematical  sun  is  the  centre  of  real 
Masonry.  We  all  know,  continues  he,  that  the  sun  is  the  foun- 
tain of  light,  the  source  of  the  seasons,  the  cause  of  the  vicissi- 
tudes of  day  and  night,  the  parent  of  vegetation,  the  friend  of 
man  ;  hence  the  scientific  Free-Mason  only  knows  the  reason 
why  the  sun  is  placed  in  the  centre  of  this  beautiful  hall." 

The  Masons,  in  order  to  protect  themselves  from  the  persecu- 
tion of  the  Christian  church,  have  always  spoken  in  a  mystical 
manner  of  the  figure  of  the  sun  in  their  lodges,  or,  like  the  as- 
tronomer Lalande,  who  is  a  mason,  been  silent  upon  the  subject. 
It  is  their  secret,  especially  in  Catholic  countries,  because  the 
figure  of  the  sun  is  the  expressive  criterion  that  denotes  they  are 
descended  from  the  Druids,  and  that  wise,  elegant  philosoph- 
ical, religion,  was  the  faith  opposite  to  the  faith  of  the  gloomy 
Christian  church. 

The  lodges  of  the  Masons,  if  built  for  the  purpose,  are  con- 
structed in  a  manner  to  correspond  with  the  apparent  motion  of 
the  sun.  They  are  situated  East  and  West.  The  master's 
place  is  always  in  the  East.  In  the  examination  of  an  entered 
apprentice,  the  master,  among  many  other  questions,  asks  him, 

Q.  How  is  the  lodge  situated  ? 

A.  East  and  West. 

Q.  Why  so  ? 

A.  Because  all  churches  and  chapels  are,  or  ought  to  be  so. 

This  answer,  which  is  mere  catechismal  form,  is  not  an  answer 
to  the  question.  It  does  no  more  than  remove  the  question  a 
point  further,  which  is,  why  ought  all  churches  and  chapels  to  be 
so  ?  But  as  the  entered  apprentice  is  not  initiated  into  the  Dru- 
idical  mysteries  of  Masonry,  he  is  not  asked  any  questions  to 
which  a  direct  answer  would  lead  thereto. 

Q.  Where  stands  your  master  ? 

A.  In  the  East. 

Q.  Why  so  ? 

A.  As  the  sun  rises  in  the  East,  and  opens  the  day,  so  the  mas- 
ter stands  in  the  East,  (with  his  right  hand  upon  his  left  breast, 
being  a  sign,  and  the  square  about  his  neck,)  to  open  the  lodge, 
and  set  his  men  at  work. 

Q.  Where  stands  your  wardens  ? 

A.  In  the  West. 

Q,  What  is  their  business  ? 

A.  As  the  sun  sets  in  the  West  to  close  the  day,  so  the  war- 
dens stand  in  the  West,  (with  their  right  hands  upon  their  left 
breasts,  being  a  sign,  and  the  level  and  plumb  rule  about  their 
necks*,)  to  close  the  lodge,  and  dismiss  the  men  from  labour, 
paying  them  their  wages. 

Here  the  name  of  the  sun  is  mentioned,  but  it  is  proper  to 
observe,  that  in  this  place  it  has  reference  only  to  labour  or  to 
the  time  of  labour,  and  not  to  any  religious  Druidical  rite  or  cere- 


236  ORIGIN    OF   FFJEE-MASONRY. 

mony,  as  it  would  have  with  respect  to  the  situation  of  Lodges 
East  and  West.  I  have  already  observed  in  the  chapter  on  the 
origin  of  the  Christian  religion,  that  the  situation  of  churches 
East  and  West  is  taken  from  the  worship  of  the  sun,  which  rises 
in  the  East,  and  has  not  the  least  reference  to  the  person  called 
Jesus  Christ.  The  Christians  never  bury  their  dead  on  the 
North  side  of  a  church  ;*  and  a  Mason's  Lodge  always  has,  or 
is  supposed  to  have,  three  windows,  which  are  called  fixed  lights, 
to  distinguish  them  from  the  moveable  lights  of  the  sun  and  the 
moon.  The  master  asks  the  entered  apprentice, 

Q.  How  are  they  (the  fixed  lights)  situated  ? 

A.   East,  West,  and  South. 

Q.   What  are  their  uses  ? 

A.  To  light  the  men  to  and  from  their  work. 

Q.  Why  are  there  no  lights  in  the  North  ? 

A.  Because  the  sun  darts  no  rays  from  thence. 

This,  among  numerous  other  instances,  shows  that  the  Chris- 
tian religion,  and  Masonry,  have  one  and  the  same  common  ori- 
gin, the  ancient  worship  of  the  sun. 

The  high  festival  of  the  Masons  is  on  the  day  they  call  St. 
John's  day  ;  but  every  enlightened  Mason  must  know  that  hold- 
ing their  festival  on  this  day  has  no  reference  to  the  person  call- 
ed St.  John  ;  and  that  it  is  only  to  disguise  the  true  cause  of 
holding  it  on  this  day,  that  they  call  the  day  by  that  name.  As 
there  were  Masons,  or  at  lea.st  Druids,  many  centuries  before 
the  time  of  St.  John,  if  such  person  ever  existed,  the  holding 
their  festival  on  this  day  must  refer  to  some  cause  totally  uncon- 
nected with  John. 

The  case  is,  that  the  day  called  St.  John's  day  is  the  24th  of 
June,  and  is  what  is  called  Midsummer-day.  The  sun  is  then 

*  This  may  have  been  the  case  formerly,  but  I  believe,  at  present,  very  little  atten- 
tion is  paid  to  the  position  of  burying  grounds  in  respect  to  churches.  In  regard  to 
"  the  situation  of  churches  East  and  West,"  I  find  the  rule  was  observed  as  late  as 
the  time  of  building  St.  Paul's  Cathedra],  which  was  finished  in  1697.  William 
Presten,  in  giving  a  description  of  this  edifice,  in  his  Illustrations  of  Masonry,  says, 
"  A  strict  regard  to  the  situation  of  this  Cathedral,  due  East  and  West,  has  given  it 
an  oblique  appearance  with  respect  to  Ludgate-street  in  front ;  so  that  the  great  front 
gate  in  the  surrounding  iron  rails,  being  made  to  regard  the  street  in  front,  rather 
than  the  Church  to  which  it  belongs,  the  statue  of  queen  Ann,  that  is  exactly  in  the 
middle  of  the  west  front,  is  thrown  on  one  side  the  straight  approach  from  the  gate  to 
the  Church,  and  gives  an  idea  of  the  whole  edifice  being  awry."  In  1707,  Sir  Chris- 
topher Wren,  the  Architect  of  St.  Paul's  Cathedral,  in  a  letter  addressed  to  a.  joint 
commissioner  with  himself  for  building  fifty  churches  in  addition  to  others  already 
built,  to  supply  the  place  of  those  destroyed  by  the  conflagration  of  1666,  observes, 
"I  could  wish  that  all  the  burials  in  Churches  should  be  disallowed,  which  is  not  only 
unwholesome,  but  the  pavements  can  never  be  kept  even,  nor  pews  upright ;  and  if  the 
Church-yard  is  close  about  the  church,  this  also  is  inconvenient.  It  will  be  inquired, 
where  then  shall  be  the  burials  *?  I  answer  in  cemeteries  seated  in  the  out-skirts  of 
the  town.  As  to  the  situation  of  the  Churches,  I  should  propose  they  be  brought  as 
forward  as  possible  into  the  larger  and  more  open  streets.  Nor  are  we,  I  think,  too 
nicely  to  observe  East  and  West  in  the  position,  unless  it  falls  out  properly."  See  An- 
derson's Book  of  Constitutions  of  the  Free-Masons. — EDITOR. 


ORIGIN    OF   FREE-MASONRY.  287 

arrived  at  the  summer  solstice  ;  and  with  respect  to  his  meridi- 
onal altitude,  or  height  at  high  noon,  appears  for  some  days  to 
be  of  the  same  height.  The  astronomical  longest  day,  like  the 
shortest  day,  is  not  every  year,  on  account  of  leap  year,  on  the 
same  numerical  day,  and  therefore  the  24th  of  June  is  always 
taken  for  Midsummer-day  ;  and  it  is  in  honour  of  the  sun,  which 
has  then  arrived  at  his  greatest  height,  in  our  hemisphere,  and 
not  any  thing  with  respect  to  St.  John,  that  this  annual  festival 
of  the  Masons,  taken  from  the  Druids,  is  celebrated  on  Midsum- 
mer-day. 

Customs  will  often  outlive  the  remembrance  of  their  origin, 
and  this  is  the  case  with  respect  to  a  custom  still  practised  in 
Ireland,  where  the  Druids  flourished  at  the  time  they  flourished 
in  Britain.  On  the  eve  of  St.  John's  day,  that  is,'  on  the  eve  of 
Midsummer-day,  the  Irish  light  fires  on  the  tops  of  the  hills. 
This  can  have  no  reference  to  St.  John  ;  but  it  has  emblemat- 
ical reference  to  the  sun,  which  on  that  day  is  at  his  highest 
summer  elevation,  and  might  in  common  language  be  said  to 
have  arrived  at  the  top  of  the  hill. 

As  to  what  Masons  and  books  of  Masonry,  tell  us  of  Solo- 
mon's Temple  at  Jerusalem,  it  is  no  wise  improbable  that  some 
masonic  ceremonies  may  have  been  derived  from  the  building 
of  that  temple,  for  the  worship  of  the  sun  was  in  practice  many 
centuries  before  the  temple  existed,  or  before  the  Israelites  came 
out  of  Egypt.  And  we  learn  from  the  history  of  the  Jewish 
Kings,  2  Kings,  chap.  xxii.  xxiii.  that  the  worship  of  the  sun 
was  performed  by  the  Jews  in  that  temple.  It  is,  however, 
much  to  be  doubted,  if  it  was  done  with  the  same  scientific 
purity  and  religious  morality,  with  which  it  was  performed  by  the 
Druids,  who  by  all  accounts  that  historically  remain  of  them, 
were  a  wise,  learned,  and  moral  class  of  men.  The  Jews,  on 
the  contrary,  were  ignorant  of  astronomy,  and  of  science  in  gen- 
eral, and  if  a  religion  founded  upon  astronomy,  fell  into  their 
hands,  it  is  almost  certain  it  would  be  corrupted.  We  do  not 
read  in  the  history  of  the  Jews,  whether  in  the  Bible  or  else- 
where, that  they  were  the  inventors  or  the  improvers  of  any  one 
art  or  science.  Even  in  the  building  of  this  temple,  the  Jews 
did  not  know  how  to  square  and  frame  the  timber  for  beginning 
and  carrying  on  the  work,  and  Solomon  was  obliged  to  send  to 
Hiram,  king  of  Tyre,  (Zidon)  to  procure  workmen  ;  "  for  thou 
knowest,  (says  Solomon  to  Hiram,  1  Kings,  chap.  v.  ver.  6,) 
that  there  is  not  among  us  any  that  can  skill  to  hew  timber  like 
unto  the  Zidonians."  This  temple  was  more  properly  Hiram's 
temple  than  Solomon's,  and  if  the  Masons  derive  any  thing  from 
the  building  of  it,  they  owe  it  to  the  Zidonians  and  not  to  the 
Jews. — But  to  return  to  the  worship  of  the  sun  in  this  temple. 

It  is  said,  2  Kings,  chap,  xxiii.  ver.  8      "  And  King  Josiah  put 


288  ORIGIN    OF   FREE-MASONRY. 

down  all  the  idolatrous  priests  that  burned  incense  unto  the  sun, 
the  moon,  the  planets,  and  all  the  host  of  heaven." — And  it  is 
said  at  the  1 1th  ver.  "  and  he  took  away  the  horses  that  the  kings 
of  Judah  had  given  to  the  sun,  at  the  entering  in  of  the  house 
of  the  Lord,  and  burned  the  chariots  of  the  sun  with  fire,  ver.  13, 
and  the  high  places'  that  were  before  Jerusalem,  which  were  on 
the  right  hand  of  the  mount  of  corruption,  which  Solomon,  the 
King  of  Israel  had  builded  for  Astoreth,  the  abomination  of  the 
Zidonians  (the  very  people  that  built  the  temple)  did  the  king 
defile. 

Besides  these  things,  the  description  that  Josephus  gives  of  the 
decorations  of  this  temple,  resembles  on  a  large  scale  thp'se  of  a 
Mason's  Lodge.  He  says  that  the  distribution  of  the  several 
parts  of  the  temple  of  the  Jews  represented  all  nature, -particu- 
larly the  parts  most  apparent  of  it,  as  the  sun,  the  moon,  the 
planets,  the  zodiac,  the  earth,  the  elements  ;  and  that  the  sys- 
tem of  the  world  was  retraced  there  by  numerous  ingenious  em- 
blems. These,  in  all  probability,  are,  what  Josiah,  in  his  ig- 
norance, calls  the  abominations  of  the  Zidonians.*  Every 
thing,  however,  drawn  from  this  temple,']'  and  applied  to  Mason- 
ry, still  refers  to  the  worship  of  the  sun,  however  corrupted  or 
misunderstood  by  the  Jews,  and,  consequently,  to  the  religion 
of  the  Druids. 

Another  circumstance  which  shows  that  Masonary  is  derived 
from  some  ancient  system,  prior  to,  and  unconnected  with,  the 
Christian  religion,  is  the  chronology,  or  method  of  counting  time, 
used  by  the  Masons  in  the  records  of  their  lodges.  They  make 
no  use  of  what  is  called  the  Christian  era  ;  and  they  reckon  their 
months  numerically,  as  the  ancient  Egyptians  did,  and  as  the 
Quakers  do  now.  I  have  by  me,  a  record  of  a  French  Lodge, 
at  the  time  the  late  Duke  of  Orleans,  then  Duke  de  Chartres,  was 
Grand  Master  of  Masonary  in  France.  It  begins  as  follows  : 
"  Le  irentiemc  jour  due  sixieme  mois  dc  Fan  de  la  V.  L.  cinq,  mil  sept 
cent  soixante  trots  ;"  that  is,  the  thirteenth  day  of  the  sixth  month 
of  the  year  of  the  venerable  Lodge,  five  thousand  seven  hundred 
and  seventy  three.  By  what  I  observe  in  English  books  of 
Masonary,  the  English  Masons  use  the  initials  A.  L.  and  not  V. 

f 

*  Smith,  in  speaking  of  a  Lodge,  says,  when  the  Lodge  is  revealed  to  an  entering 
Mason,  it  discovers  to  htm  a  representation  of  the  w or Id  ;  in  which,  from  the  won- 
ders of  nature,  we  are  led  to  contemplate  her  great  Original,  and  worship  him  from 
his  mighty  works;  and  we  are  thereby  also  moved  to  exercise  those  moral  and  social 
virtues  which  become  mankind  as  the  servants  of  the  great  Architect  of  the  world. 

f  It  may  not  be  improper  here  to  observe,  that  the  law  called  the  law  of  Moses  could 
net  have  been  in  existence  at  the  time  of  building  this  temple.  Here  is  the  likeness 
of  things  in  heaven  above,  and  in  the  earth  beneath.  And  we  read  in  1  Kings,  chap. 
6,  7,  that  Solomon  made  cherubs  and  cherubims,  that  he  carved  all  the  walls  of  the 
house  round  about  with  cherubirns  and  palm-trees,  and  open  flowers,  and  that  he 
made  a  molten  sea,  placed  on  twelve  oxen,  and  the  ledges  of  it  were  ornamented  with 
lions,  oxen,  and  cherubims;  all  this  is  contrary  to  the  law,  called  the  law  of  Moses. 


ORIGIN    OF    FREE-MASONRY.  289 

L.  By  A.  L.  they  mean  in  the  year  of  the  Lodge,*  as  tne 
Christians  by  A.  D.  mean  in  the  year  of  our  Lord.  But  A.  L. 
like  V.  L.  refers  to  the  same  chronological  era,  that  is,  to-  the 
supposed  time  of  the  creation.  In  the  chapter  on  the  origin  of 
the  Chiristian  religion,  I  have  shown  that  the  cosmogany,  that  is, 
the  account  of  the  creation,  with  which  the  book  of  Genesis  opens, 
has  taken  and  been  mutilated  from  the  Zend-A vista  of  Zo- 
roaster, and  is  fixed  as  a  preface  to  the  Bible,  after  the  Jews 
returned- from  captivity  in  Babylon,  and  that  the  rabbins  of  the 
Jews  de  not  hold  their  account  in  Genesis  to  be  a  fact,  but  mere 
allegory.  The  six  thousand  years  in  the  Zend- Avista,  is  chang- 
ed or  interpolated  into  six  days  in  the  account  of  Genesis.  The 
Masons  appear  to  have  chosen  the  same  period,  and  perhaps  to 
avoid  the  suspicion  and  persecution  of  the  church,  have  adopted 
the  era  of  the  world,  as  the  era  of  Masonry.  The  V.  L.  of  the 
French,  and  A.  L.  of  the  English  Mason,  answer  to  the  A.  M. 
Annp-Mundi,  or  year  of  the  world. 

Though  the  Masons  have  taken  many  of  their  ceremonies  and 
hieroglyphics  from  the  ancient  Egyptians,  it  is  certain  they  have 
not  taken  their  chronology  from  thence.  If  they  had,  the  church 
would  soon  have  sent  them  to  the  stake  ;  as  the  chronology  of 
the  Egyptians,  like  that  of  the  Chinese,  goes  many  thousand 
years  beyond  the  Bible  chronology. 

The  religion  of  the  Druids,  as  before  said,  was  the  same  as 
the  religion  of  the  ancient  Egyptians.  The  priests  of  Egypt 
were  the  professors  and  teachers  of  science,  and  were  styled 
priests  of  Heliopolis,  that  is,  of  the  city  of  the  sun.  The  Druids 
in  Europe,  who  were  the  same  order  of  men,  have  their  name 
from  the  Teutonic  or  ancient  German  language  ;  the  Germans 
being  anciently  called  Teutones.  The  word  Druid  signifies  a 
ivise  man.  In  Persia  they  were  called  magi,  which  signifies  the 
same  thing. 

"  Egypt,"  says  Smith,  "  from  whence  we  derive  many  of  our 
mysteries,  has  always  borne  a  distinguished  rank  in  history,  and 
was  once  celebrated  above  all  others  for  its  antiquities,  learning, 
opulence,  and  fertility.  In  their  system,  their  principal  hero- 
gods,  Osiris  and  Isis,  theologically  represented  the  Supreme  Be- 
ing and  universal  nature  ;  and  physically,  the  two  great  celestial 
luminaries,  the  sun  and  the  moon,  by  whose  influence  all  nature 
was  actuated.  The  experienced  brethren  of  the  Society  (says 
Smith  in  a  note  to  this  passage)  are  well  informed  what  affinity 
these  symbols  bear  to  Masonry,  and  why  they  are  used  in  all 
Masonic  Lodges." 

*  V.  L.  used  by  French  Masons,  are  the  initials  of  Vraie  Lumiere,  true  light ;  and 
A.  L.  used  by  the  English,  are  the  initials  of  Anno  Lucis,  in  the  year  of  light.  But 
as  in  both  cases,  as  Mr.  Piine  observes,  reference  is  had  to  the  supposed  time  of  the 
creation,  his  mistake  is  of  no  consequence. — EDITOR 

25 


290  ORIGIN    Of    FREE-MASONRY. 

In  speaking  of  the  apparel  of  the  Masons  in  their  Lodges,  part 
of  which,  as  we  see  in  their  public  processions,  is  a  white  leather 
apron,  he  says,  "  the  Druids  were  apparelled  in  white  at  the  time 
of  their  sacrifices  and  solemn  offices.  The  Egyptian  priests  of 
Osiris  wore  snow-white  cotton.  The  Grecian  and  most  other 
priests  wore  white  garments.  As  Masons  we  regard  the  princi- 
ples of  those  who  were  the  first  worshipers  of  the  true  God,  imitate 
their  apparel,  and  assume  the  badge  of  innocence. 

"  The  Egyptians,7'  continues  Smith,  "  in  the  earliest  ages,  con- 
stituted a  great  number  of  Lodges,  but  with  assiduous  care  kept 
their  secrets  of  Masonry  from  all  strangers.  These  secrets  have 
been  imperfectly  handed  down  to  us  by  tradition  only,  and  ought 
to  be  kept  undiscovered  to  the  labourers,  craftsmen,  and  appren- 
tices, till  by  good  behaviour  and  long  study,  they  become  better 
acquainted  in  geometry  and  the  liberal  arts,  and  thereby  qualifi- 
ed for  Masters  and  Wardens,  which  is  seldom  or  ever  the  case 
with  English  Masons." 

Under  the  head  of  Free-Masonry,  written  by  the  astronomer 
Lalande,  in  the  French  Encyclopedia,  I  expected  from  his  great 
knowledge  in  astronomy,  to  have  found  much  information  on  the 
origin  of  Masonry ;  for  what  connection  can  there  be  between 
any  institution  and  the  sun  and  twelve  signs  of  the  zodiac,  if  there 
be  not  something  in  that  institution  or  in  its  origin,  that  has  refer- 
ence to  astronomy.  Every  thing  used  as  an  hieroglyphic,  has  re- 
ference to  the  subject  and  purpose  for  which  it  is  used  ;  and  we 
are  not  to  suppose  the  Free-Masons,  among  whom  are  many  very 
learned  and  scientific  men,  to  be  such  idiots  as  to  make  use  of 
astronomical  signs  without  some  astronomical  purpose. 

But  I  was  much  disappointed  in  my  expectation  from  Lalande 
In  speaking  of  the  origin  of  Masonry,  he  says,  "L'origine  de  la, 
inaconnerie  se  perd,  comme  tant  d?autres  dans  Pcbscurite  dcs  temps ;" 
that  is,  the  origin  of  Masonry,  like  many  others,  loses  itself  in  the 
obscurity  of  time.  When  I  came  to  this  expression,  I  supposed 
Lalande  a  Mason,  and  on  inquiry  found  he  was.  This  passing 
over  saved  him  from  the  embarrassment  which  Masons  are  under 
respecting  the  disclosure  of  their  origin,  and  which  they  are  sworn 
to  conceal.  There  is  a  society  of  Masons  in  Dublin  who  take 
the  name  of  Druids  ;  these  Masons  must  be  supposed  to  have  a 
reason  for  taking  that  name. 

I  come  now  to  speak  of  the  cause  of  secresy  used  by  the  Ma- 
sons. The  natural  source  of  secresy  is  fear.  When  any  new  re- 
ligion over-runs  a  former  religion,  the  professors  of  the  new  be- 
come the  persecutors  of  the  old.  We  see  this  in  all  the  instances 
that  history  brings  before  us.  When  Hilkiahthe  priest  and  Sha- 
phan  the  scribe,  in  the  reign  of  king  Josiah,  found,  or  pretended 
to  find  the  law,  called  the  law  of  Moses,  a  thousand  years  after 
the  time  of  Moses,  and  it  does  not  appear  from  the  2d  book  of 
J£ings,  chapters  22,  23,  that  such  law  was  ever  practiced  or 


ORIGIN    Of   FRFE-MASONRY.  291 

known  before  the  time  of  Josiah,  he  established  that  law  as  a  na- 
tional religion,  and  put  all  the  priests  of  the  sun  to  death.  When 
the  Christian  religion  over-ran  the  Jewish  religion,  the  Jews  were 
the  continual  subjects  of  persecution  in  all  Christian  countries. 
When  the  Protestant  religion  in  England  over-ran  the  Roman 
Catholic  religion,  it  was  made  death  for  a  Catholic  priest  to  be 
found  in  England.  As  this  has  been  the  case  in  all  the  instances 
we  have  any  knowledge  of,  we  are  obliged  to  admit  it  with  respect 
to  the  case  in  question,  and  that  when  the  Christian  religion  over- 
ran the  religion  of  the  Druids  in  Italy,  ancient  Gaul,  Britain,  and 
Ireland,  the  Druids  became  the  subjects  of  persecution.  This 
would  naturally  and  necessarily  oblige  such  of  them  as  remained 
attached  to  their  original  religion  to  meet  in  secret,  and  under 
the  strongest  injunctions  of  secresy.  Their  safety  depended  up- 
on it.  A  false  brother  might  expose  the  lives  of  many  of  them 
to  destruction ;  and  from  the  remains  of  the  religion  of  the  Druids, 
thus  preserved,  arose  the  institution,  which,  to  avoid  the  name  of 
Druid,  took  that  of  Mason,  and  practised,  under  this  new  name, 
the  rights  and  ceremonies  of  Druids. 


LETTER 

TO 

SAMUEL  ADAMS. 


MY  DEAR  AND  VENERABLE  FRIEND, 

I  RECEIVED  with  great  pleasure  your  friendly  and  affectionate 
letter  of  Nov.  30th,  and  I  thank  you  also  for  the  frankness  of  it. 
Between  men  in  pursuit  of  truth,  and  whose  object  is  the  happi- 
ness of  man  both  here  and  hereafter,  there  ought  to  be  no  re- 
serve. Even  error  has  a  claim  to  indulgence,  if  not  to  respect, 
when  it  is  believed  to  be  truth.  I  am  obliged  to  you  for  your  af- 
fectionate remembrance  of  what  you  style  my  services  in  awak- 
ening the  public  mind  to  a  declaration  of  independence,  and  sup- 
porting it  after  it  was  declared.  I  also,  like  you,  have  often 
looked  back  on  those  times,  and  have  thought,  that  if  indepen- 
dence had  not  been  declared  at  the  time  it  was,  the  public  mind 
could  not  have  been  brought  up  to  it  afterwards.  It  will  imme- 
diately occur  to  you,  who  were  so  intimately  acquainted  with  the 
situation  of  things  at  that  time,  that  I  allude  to  the  black  times 
of  seventy-six  ;  for  though  I  know,  and  you  my  friend  also  know, 
they  were  no  other  than  the  natural  consequences  of  the  military 
blunders  of  that  campaign,  the  country  might  have  viewed  them 
as  proceeding  from  a  natural  inability  to  support  its  cause  against 
the  enemy,  and  have  sunk  under  the  despondency  of  that  mia- 
conceived  idea.  This  was  the  impression  against  which  it  was 
necessary  the  country  should  be  strongly  animated. 

I  now  come  to  the  second  part  of  your  letter,  on  which  I  shall 
be  as  frank  with  you  as  you  are  with  me.  u  But  (say  you)  when 
I  heard  you  had  turned  your  mind  to  a  defence  of  infidelity,  I  felt 
myself  much  astonished,"  &c.  What,  my  good  friend,  do  you 
call  believing  in  God  infidelity!  for  that  is  the  great  point  men- 
tioned in  the  Age  of  Reason  against  all  divided  beliefs  and  alle- 
gorical divinities.  The  Bishop  of  Llandaff  (Dr.  Watson)  not 
only  acknowledges  this,  but  pays  me  some  compliments  upon  h, 
in  his  answer  to  the  second  part  of  that  work.  "  There  is  (says 
he)  a  philosophical  sublimity  in  some  of  your  ideas,  when  speak- 
ing of  the  Creator  of  the  Universe." 

What  then,  (my  much  esteemed  friend,  for  I  do  not  respect 
you  the  less  because  we  differ,  and  that  perhaps  not  much,  in  re- 
ligious sentiments)  what,  I  ask,  is  the  thing  called  infidelity?  If 
we  go  back  to  your  ancestors  and  mine,  three  or  four  hundred 
25* 


294  LETTER    TO 

years  ago,  for  we  must  have  fathers,  and  grandfathers  or  we 
should  not  have  been  here,  we  shall  find  them  praying  to  saintg 
and  virgins,  and  believing  in  purgatory  and  transubstantiation  ; 
and  therefore,  all  of  us  are  infidels  according  to  our  forefather's 
belief.  If  we  go  back  to  times  more  ancient  we  shall  again  be 
infidels  according  to  the  belief  of  some  other  forefathers. 

The  case,  my  friend,  is,  that  the  world  has  been  overrun  with 
fable  and  creed  of  human  invention,  with  sectaries  of  whole  na- 
tions, against  other  nations,  and  sectaries  of  those  sectaries  in 
each  of  them  against  each  other.  Every  sectary,  except  the 
Quakers,  have  been  persecutors.  Those  who  fled  from  persecu- 
tion, persecuted  in  their  turn  ;  and  it  is  this  confusion  of  creeds 
that  has  filled  the  world  with  persecution,  and  deluged  it  with 
blood.  Even  the  depredation  on  your  commerce  by  the  Barbary 
powers,  sprang  from  fhe  crusades  of  the  church  against  those 
powers.  It  was  a  war  of  creed  against  creed,  each  boasting  of 
God  for  its  author,  and  reviling  each  other  with  the  name  of  infi- 
del. If  I  do  not  believe  as  you  believe,  it  proves  that  you  do  not 
believe  as  I  believe,  and  this  is  all  that  it  proves. 

There  is,  however,  one  point  of  union  wherein  all  religions 
meet,  and  that  is  in  the  first  article  of  every  man's  creed,  and  of 
every  nation's  creed,  that  has  any  creed  at  all,  /  believe  in  God. 
Those  who  rest  here,  and  there  are  millions  who  do,  cannot  be 
wrong  as  far  as  their  creed  goes.  Those  who  choose  to  go  fur- 
ther may  be  wrong,  for  it  is  impossible  that  all  can  be  right,  since 
there  is  so  much  contradiction  among  them.  The  first,  there- 
fore, are,  in  my  opinion,  on  the  safest  side. 

I  presume  you  are  so  far  acquainted  with  ecclesiastical  history 
as  to  know,  and  the  bishop  who  has  answered  me  has  been  oblig- 
ed to  acknowledge  the  fact,  that  the  Books  that  compose  the  New 
Testament,  were  voted  by  yeas  and  nays  to  be  the  Word  of  God, 
as  you  now  vote  a  law,  by  the  Popish  Councils  of  Nice  and  La- 
odocia,  about  fourteen  hundred  and  fifty  years  ago.  With  re- 
spect to  the  fact  there  is  no  dispute,  neither  do  I  mention  it  for 
the  sake  of  controversy.  This  vote  may  appear  authority  enough 
to  some,  and  not  authority  enough  to  others.  It  is  proper,  how- 
ever, that  every  body  should  know  the  fact. 

With  respect  to  the  Age  of  Reason  which  you  so  much  con- 
demn, and  that,  I  believe,  without  having  read  it,  for  you  say 
only  that  you  heard  of  it,  I  will  inform  you  of  a  circumstance, 
because  you  cannot  know  it  by  other  means. 

I  have  said  in  the  first  page  of  the  first  part  of  that  work,  that 
it  had  long  been  my  intention  to  publish  my  thoughts  upon  reli- 
gion, but  that  I  had  reserved  it  to  a  later  time  of  life.  I  have 
now  to  inform  you  why  I  wrote  it  and  published  it  at  the  time  I 
did. 

In  the  first  place,  I  saw  my  life  in  continual  danger.  My 
friends  were  falling  as  fast  as  the  guillotine  could  cut  their  heads 


SAMUEL  ADAMS.  295 

off,  and  as  I  expected  every  day  the  same  fate,  1  resolved  to  be- 
gin my  work.  I  appeared  to  myself  to  be  on  my  death  bed,  for 
death  was  on  every  side  of  me,  and  I  had  no  time  to  lose.  This 
accounts  for  my  writing  at  the  time  I  did,  and  so  nicely  did  the 
time  and  intention  meet,  that  I  had  not  finished 'the  first  part  of 
the  work  more  than  six  hours,  before  I  was  arrested  and  taken 
to  prison.  Joel  Barlow  was  with  me,  and  knows  the  fact. 

In  the  second  place,  the  people  of  France  were  running  head- 
long into  atheism,  and  I  had  the  work  translated  and  published  in 
their  own  language,  to  stop  them  in  that  career,  and  fix  them  to 
the  first  article  (as  I  have  before  said)  of  every  man's  creed,  who 
has  any  creed  at  all,  /  believe  in  God.  I  endangered  my  own 
life,  in  the  first  place,  by  opposing  in  the  Convention  the  exe- 
cuting of  the  King,  and  labouring  to  show  they  were  trying  the 
monarch  and  not  the  man,  and  that  the  crimes  imputed  to  him 
were  the  crimes  of  the  monarchical  system ;  and  endangered  it 
a  second  time  by  opposing  atheism,  and  yet  some  of  your  priests, 
for  I  do  believe  that  all  are  perverse,  cry  out,  in  the  war-whoop 
of  monarchical  priestcraft,  what  an  infidel  !  what  a  wicked  man 
is  Thomas  Paine  !  They  might  as  well  add,  for  he  believes  in 
God,  and  is  against  shedding  blood. 

But  all  this  war-whoop  of  the  pulpit  has  some  concealed  object. 
Religion  is  not  the  cause,  but  is  the  stalking  horse.  They  put  it 
forward  to  conceal  themselves  behind  it.  It  is  not  a  secret  that 
there  has  been  a  party  composed  of  the  leaders  of  the  Federal- 
ists, for  I  do  not  include  all  Federalists  with  their  leaders,  who 
have  been  working  by  various  means  for  several  years  past,  to 
overturn  the  Federal  Constitution  established  on  the  representa- 
tive system,  and  place  government  in  the  new  world  on  the  cor- 
rupt system  of  the  old.  To  accomplish  this  a  large  standing  ar- 
my was  necessary,  and  as  a  pretence  for  such  an  army,  the  dan- 
ger of  a  foreign  invasion  must  be  bellowed  forth,  from  the  pulpit, 
from  the  press,  and  by  their  public  orators. 

I  am  not  of  a  disposition  inclined  to  suspicion.  It  is  in  its  na- 
ture a  mean  and  cowardly  passion,  and  upon  the  whole,  even  admit- 
ting error  into  the  case,  it  is  better  ;  I  am  sure  it  is  more  gener- 
ous to  be  wrong  on  the  side  of  confidence,  than  on  the  side  of 
suspicion.  But  I  know  as  a  fact,  that  the  English  Government 
distributes  annually  fifteen  hundred  pounds  sterling  among  the 
Presbyterian  ministers  in  England,  and  one  hundred  among  those 
of  Ireland  ;*  and  when  I  hear  of  the  strange  discourses  of  some 
of  your  ministers  and  professors  of  colleges,  I  cannot,  as  the 
Quakers  say,  find  freedom  in  my  mind  to  acquit  them.  Their 
anti-revolutionary  doctrines  invite  suspicion,  even  against  one's 
will,  and  in  spite  of  one's  charity  to  believe  well  of  them. 

*  There  must  undoubtedly  be  a  very  gross  mistake  in  respect  to  the  amount  said  to 
be  expended  ;  the  sums  intended  to  be  expressed  were  probably  fifteen  hundred  thou- 
sand, and  one  hundred  thousand  pounds.— 'EDITOR. 


296  LETTER  TO 

As  you  have  given  me  one  Scripture  prrrase,  I  will  give  you 
another  for  those  ministers.  It  is  said  in  Exodus,  chapter  xxiii. 
verse  28,  "  Thou  shalt  not  revile  the  Gods,  nor  curse  the  ruler 
.  of  thy  people."  But  those  ministers,  such  I  mean  as  Dr.  Em- 
mons,  curse  ruler  and  people  both,  for  the  majority  are,  politi- 
cally, the  people,  and  it  is  those  who  have  chosen  the  ruler  whom 
they  curse.  As  to  the  first  part  of  the  verse,  that  of  not  reviling 
the  Gods,  it  makes  no  part  of  my  Scripture  :  I  have  but  one  God. 

Since  I  began  this  letter,  for  I  write  it  by  piece-meals  as  I  have 
leisure,  I  have  seen  the  four  letters  that  passed  between  you  and 
John  Adams.  In  your  first  letter  you  say,  "  Let  divines  and 

i  philosophers,  statesmen  and  patriots,  unite  their  endeavours  to 
renovate  the  age  by  inculcating  in  the  minds  of  youth  the  fear  and 
love  of  the  Deity,  and  universal  philanthropy.1'  Why,  my  dear 
friend,  this  is  exactly  my  religion,  and  is  the  whole  of  it.  That 
you  may  have  an  idea  that  the  Age  of  Reason  (for  I  believe  you 
have  not  read  it)  inculcates  this  reverential  fear  and  love  of  the 
Deity,  I  will  give  you  a  paragraph  from  it  : 

"  Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  power?  We  see  it  in  the 
immensity  of  the  Creation.  Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his 
wisdom?  We  see  it  in  the  unchangeable  order  by  which  the  in- 
comprehensible whole  is  governed.  Do  we  want  to  contemplate 
his  munificence  ?  We  see  it  in  the  abundance  with  which  he  fills 
the  earth.  Do  we  want  to  contemplate  his  mercy?  We  see  it 
iu  his  not  withholding  that  abundance  even  from  the  unthankful." 

As  I  am  fully  with  you  in  your  first  part,  that  respecting  the 
Deity,  so  am  I  in  your  second,  that  of  universal  philanthropy  ;  by 
which  I  do  not  mean  merely  the  sentimental  benevolence  of  wish- 
ing well,  but  the  practical  benevolence  of  doing  good.  We  can- 
not serve  the  Deity  in  the  manner  we  serve  those  who  cannot  do 
without  that  service.  He  needs  no  services  from  us.  We  can 
add  nothing  to  eternity.  But  it  is  in  our  power  to  render  a  ser- 
vice acceptable  to  him,  and  that  is  not  by  praying,  but  by  endeav- 
ouring to  make  his  creatures  happy.  A  man  does  not  serve  God 
when  he  prays,  for  it  is  himself  he  is  trying  to  serve  ;  and  as  to 
hiring  or  paying  men  to  pray,  as  if  the  Deity  needed  instruction, 
it  is  in  my  opinion  an  abomination.  One  good  school-master  is 
of  more  use  and  of  more  value  than  a  load  of  such  parsons  as 
Dr.  Enimons,  and  some  others. 

You,  my  dear  and  much  respected  friend,  are  now  far  in  the 
vale  of  years  ;  I  have  yet,  I  believe,  some  years  in  store,  for  I 
have  a  good  state  of  health  and  a  happy  mind  ;  I  take  care  of 
both,  by  nourishing  the  first  with  temperance,  and  the  latter  with 
abundance. 

This,  I  believe  you  will  allow  to  be  the  true  philosophy  of  life. 
You  will  see  by  my  third  letter  to  the  citizens  of  the  United 
States,  that  I  have  been  exposed  to,  and  preserved  through  many 
dangers  ;  but  instead  of  buffeting  the  Deity  with  prayers,  as  if  I 


SAMUEL   ADAMS.  297 

distrusted  him,  or  must  dictate  to  him,  I  reposed  myself  on  his 
protection  :  and  you,  my  friend,  will  find,  even  in  your  last  mo- 
ments, more  consolation  in  the  silence  of  resignation  than  in  the 
murmuring  wish  of  prayer. 

In  every  thing  which  you  say  in  your  second  letter  to  John 
Adams,  respecting  our  rights  as  men  and  citizens  in  this  world, 
I  am  perfectly  with  you.     On  other  points  we  have  to  answer  to 
our  Creator  and  not  to  each  other.     The  key  of  heaven  is  not  in% 
the  keeping  of  any  sect,  nor  ought  the  road  to  it  to  be  obstructed  ) 
by  any.     Our  relation  to  each  other  in  this  world  is  as  men,  and/ 
the  man  who  is  a  friend  to  man  and  to  his  rights,  let  his  religious\ 
opinions  be  what  they  may,  is  a  good  citizen,  to  whom  I  can  give,  \ 
as  I  ought  to  do,  and  as  every  other  ought,  the  Vight  hand  of  fel- 
lowship, and  to  none  with  more  hearty  good  will,  my  dear  friend 
than  to  you 

THOMAS  PAINE. 

Federal  City,  Jan.  1,  1803. 


EXTRACT  FROM  A  LETTER 

TO 

ANDREW  A.  DEAJY. 


RESPECTED  FRIEND, 

I  RECEIVED  your  friendly  letter,  for  which  I  am  obliged  to  you. 
It  is  three  weeks  ago  to-day  (Sunday,  Aug.  15,)  that  I  was  struck 
with  a  fit  of  an  apoplexy,  that  deprived  me  of  all  sense  and  mo- 
tion. I  had  neither  pulse  nor  breathing,  and  the  people  about 
me  supposed  me  dead.  I  had  felt  exceedingly  well  that  day,  and 
had  just  taken  a  slice  of  bread  and  butter,  for  supper,  and  was 
going  to  bed.  The  fit  took  me  on  the  stairs,  as  suddenly  as  if  I 
had  been  shot  through  the  heati  ;  and  I  got  so  very  much  hurt 
by  the  fall,  that  I  have  not  been  able  to  get  in  and  out  of  bed 
since  that  day,  otherwise  than  being  lifted  out  in  a  blanket,  by 
two  persons  ;  yet  all  this  while  my  mental  faculties  have  remain- 
ed as  perfect  as  I  ever  enjoyed  them.  I  consider  the  scene  I 
have  passed  through  as  an  experiment  on  dying,  and  I  find  that 
death  has  no  terrors  for  me.  As  to  the  people  called  Christian?, 
they  have  no  evidence  that  their  religion  is  true.|  There  is  no 
more  proof  that  the  Bible  is  the  word  of  God,  than  that  the  Ko- 
ran of  Mahomet  is  the  word  of  God.  It  is  education  makes  all 
the  difference.  Man,  before  he  begins  to  think  for  himself,  is  as 
much  the  child  of  habit  in  Creeds  as  he  is  in  ploughing  and  sow- 
ing. Yet  creeds,  like  opinions,  prove  nothing. 

Where  is  the  evidence  that  the  person  called  Jesus  Christ  is 
the  begotten  Son  of  God  ?  The  case  admits  not  of  evidence  ei- 
ther to  our  senses,  or  our  mental  faculties  ;  neither  has  God  given 
to  man  any  talent  by  which  such  a  thing  is  comprehensible.  It 
cannot  therefore  be  an  object  for  faith  to  act  upon,  for  faith  is 
nothing  more  than  an  assent  the  mind  gives  to  something  it  sees 
cause  to  believe  is  fact.  But  priests,  preachers,  and  fanatics, 
put  imagination  in  the  place  of  faith,  and  it  is  the  nature  of  the 
imagination  to  believe  without  evidence. 

*  Mr.  Dean  rented  Mr.  Paine's  farm  at  New  Rochelle. 

|  Mr.  Paine's  .entering  upon  the  subject  of  religion  on  this  occasion,  it  may  be  pre- 
sumed, was  occasioned  by  the  following  passage  in  Mr.  Dean's  letter  to  him,  viz. 

"  I  have  read  with  good  attention  your  manuscript  on  dreams,  and  examination  on 
the  prophecies  in  the  bible.  I  am  now  searching  the  old  prophecies,  and  comparing 
the  same  to  those  said  to  be  quoted  in  the  New  Testament.  I  confess  the  comparison 
is  a  matter  worthy  of  our  serious  attention  ;  I  know  not  the  result  till  I  finish ;  then, 
if  you  be  living,  I  shall  communicate  the  game  to  you  :  I  hope  to  be  with  you  as  soon 
»is  possible." 


LETTER   TO    MR.    DEAN,  203 

If  Joseph  the  carpenter  dreamed,  (as  the  book  of  Matthew, 
chap.  1st,  says  he  did,)  that  his  betrothed  wife,  Mary,  was  with 
child,  by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  that  an  angel  told  him  so  ;  I  am 
not  obliged  to  put  faith  in  his  dream,  nor  do  I  put  any,  for  I  put 
no  faith  in  my  own  dreams,  and  I  should  be  weak, and  foolish  in- 
deed to  put  faith  in  the  dreams  of  others. 

The  Christian  religion  is  derogatory  to  the  Creator  in  all  its 
articles.  It  puts  the  Creator  in  an  inferior  point  of  view,  and 
places  the  Christian  Devil  above  him.  It  is  he,  according  to 
the  absurd  story  in  Genesis,  that  outwits  the  Creator,  in  the  gar- 
den of  Eden,  and  steals  from  him  his  favourite  creature,  man, 
and  at  last,  obliges  him  to  beget  a  son,  and  put  that  son  to  death, 
to  get  man  back  again,  and  this  the  priests  of  the  Christian  re- 
ligion, call  redemption. 

Christian  authors  exclaim  against  the  practice  of  offering  up 
human  sacrifices,  which  they  say,  is  done  in  some  countries  ; 
and  those  authors  make  those  exclamations  without  ever  reflect- 
ing that  their  own  doctrine  of  salvation  is  founded  on  a  human 
sacrifice.  They  are  saved,  they  say,  by  the  blood  of  Christ. 
The  Christian  religion  begins  with  a  dream,  and  ends  with  a 
murder. 

As  I  am  now  well  enough  to  set  up  some  hours  in  the  day, 
though  not  well  enough  to  get  up  without  help,  I  employ  myself 
as  I  have  always  done,  in  endeavouring  to  bring  man  to  the  right 
use  of  the  reason  that  God  has  given  him,  and  to  direct  his  mind 
immediately  to  his  Creator,  and  not  to  fanciful  secondary  beings 
called  mediators,  as  if  God  was  superannuated  or  ferocious. 

As  to  the  book  called  the  Bible,  it  is  blasphemy  to  call  it  the 
word  of  God.  It  is  a  book  of  Jies  and  contradiction,  and  a  his- 
tory of  bad  times  and  bad  men.  There  is  but  a  few  good  charac- 
ters in  the  whole  book.  The  fable  of  Christ  and  his  twelve  apostles, 
which  is  a  parody  on  the  sun  and  the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac, 
copied  from  the  ancient  religions  of  the  eastern  world,  is  the 
least  hurtful  part.  Every  thing  told  of  Christ  has  reference  to 
the  sun.  His  reported  resurrection  is  at  sun-rise,  and  that  on 
the  first  day  of  the  week  ;  that  is,  on  the  day  an-ciently  dedicated 
to  the  sun,  and  from  thence  called  Sunday  ;  in  Latin  Dies  Solis, 
the  day  of  the  sun  ;  as  the  next  day  Monday,  is  Moon-day.  But 
there  is  not  room  in  a  letter  to  explain  these  things. 

While  man  keeps  to  the  belief  of  one  God,  his  reason  unites 
with  his  creed.  He  is  not  shocked  with  contradictions  ajid  nor-  ^ 
rid  stories.  His  Bible  is  the  heavens  and  the  earth.  He  beholds 
his  Creator  in  all  his  works,  and  every  thing  he  beholds  inspires 
him  with  reverence  and  gratitude.  From  the  goodness  of  God 
to  all,  he  learns  his  duty  to  his  fellow-man,  and  stands  self-re- 
proved when  he  transgresses  it.  Such  a  man  is  no  persecutor.  A 

But  when  he  multiplies  his  creed  with  imaginary  things,  of 
which  he  can  have  neither  evidence  nor  conception,  such  as  the 


300  LETTER   TO    MR.    DEAN. 

tale  of  the  Garden  ofEden,  the  talking  serpent,  the  fall  of  man,  the 
dreams  of  Joseph  the  carpenter,  the  pretended  resurrection  and 
ascension,  of  which  "here  is  even  no  historical  relation,  for  no  his- 
torian of  those  times  metions  such  a  thing,  he  gets  into  the  path- 
less region  of  confusion,  and  turns  either  fanatic  or  hypocrite. 
He  forces  his  mind,  and  pretends  to  believe  what  he  does  not  be- 
lieve. This  is  in  general  the  case  with  the  methodists.  Their 
religion  is  all  creed  and  no  morals. 

I  have  now  my  friend  given  you  a  fac  simile  of  my  mind  on 
the  subject  of  religion  and  creeds,  and  my  wish  is,  that  you  make 
this  letter  as  publicly  known  as  you  find  opportunities  of  doing. 

Yours  in  friendship, 

THOMAS  PAINE 

JV  F.  Aug.  1806. 


MISCELLANEOUS  PIECES. 


EXTRACTED  FROM  THE  "  PROSPECT,  OR  VIEW  OF  THE  MORAL 
WORLD,"  A  PERIODICAL  WORK,  EDITED  AND  PUBLISHED  BY 
ELIHU  PALMER,  AT  NEW-YORK,  IN  THE  YEAR  1804. 


The  following  fugitive  pieces  were  written  by  Mr.  Paine  occa- 
sionally to  pass  off  an  idle  hour,  and  communicated  for  the  Pros- 
pect, to  aid  his  friend,  Mr.  Palmer,  in  support  of  that  publication. 
JPerhaps,  in  some  cases,  it  may  appear  that  the  same  ideas  have 
been  expressed  in  his  other  work  ;  but,  if  so,  the  various  points 
of  view,  in  which  they  are  here  placed,  it  is  presumed,  will  not 
fail  to  give  an  interest  to  these  miscellaneous  remarks. 

The  same  signatures  are  continued  as  were  subscribed  to  the 
original  communications. 


REMARKS  ON  R.  HALL'S  SERMON. 

[The  follmdng piece,  obligingly  communicated  by  Mr.  Paine,  for  the 
Prospect,  is  full  of  that  acuteness  of  mind,  perspicuity  of  expres- 
sion, and  clearness  of  discernment  for  which  this  excellent  author 
is  so  remarkable  in  all  his  writings. ~\ 

ROBERT  HALL,  a  protestant  minister  in  England,  preached  and 
published  a  sermon  against  what  he  calls  "  Modern  Infidelity."  A 
copy  of  it  was  sent  to  a  gentleman  in  America,  with  a  request  for 
his  opinion  thereon.  That  gentleman  sent  it  to  a  friend  of  his  in 
New-York,  with  the  request  written  on  the  cover — and  this  last 
sent  it  to  Thomas  Paine,  who  wrote  the  follwing  observations  on 
the  blank  leaf  at  the  end  of  the  Sermon. 

The  preacher  of  the  foregoing  sermon  speaks  a  great  deal  about 
infidelity,  but  does  not  define  what  he  means  by  it.  His  harangue 
is  a  general  exclamation.  Every  thing,  I  suppose,  that  is  not  in 
his  creed  is  infidelity  with  him,  and  his  creed  is  infidelity  with  me. 
Infidelity  is  believing  falsely.  If  what  Christians  believe  is  not 
true,  it  is  the  Christians  that  are  the  infidels. 

The  point  between  deists  and  Christians  is  not  about  doctrine, 
but  about  fact — for  if  the  things  believed  by  the  Christians  to  be 
facts,  are  not  facts,  the  doctrine  founded  thereon  falls  of  itself. 
There  is  such  a  book  as  the  bible,  but  is  it  a  fact  that  the  bible  is 
revealed  religion  ?  The  Christians  cannot  prove  it  is.  They  put 
tradition  in  place  of  evidence,  and  tradition  is  not  proof.  If  it 


302  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

were,  the  reality  of  witches  could  be  proved  by  the  same  kind  of 
evidence. 

The  bibie  is  a  "history  of  the  times  of  which  it  speaks,  and  his- 
tory is  not  revelation.  The  obscene  and  vulgar  stories  in  the  bi- 
ble are  as  repugnant  to  our  ideas  of  the  purity  of  a  divine  Being, 
as  the  horrid  cruelties  and  murders  it  ascribes  to  him,  are  repug- 
nant to  our  ideas  of  his  justice.  It  is  the  reverence  of  the  Deists 
for  the  attributes  of  the  DEITY,  that  causes  them  to  reject  the  bible. 

Is  the  account  which  the  Christian  chutch  gives  of  the  person 
called  Jesus  Christ,  a  fact  or  a  fable  ?  Is  it  a  fact  that  he  was  be- 
gotten by  the  holy  Ghost  ?  The  Christians  cannot  prove  it,  for  the 
case  does  not  admit  of  proof.  The  things  called  miracles  in  the. 
bible,  such  for  instance  as  raising  the  dead,  admitted,  if  true,  of 
ocular  demonstration,  but  the  story  of  the  conception  of  Jesus 
Christ  in  the  womb  is  a  case  beyond  miracle,  for  it  did  not  admit 
of  demonstration.  Mary,  the  reputed  mother  of  Jesus,  who  must 
be  supposed  to  know  best,  never  said  so  herself,  and  all  the  evi- 
dence of  it  is,  that  the  book  of  Matthew  says,  that  Joseph  dreamed 
an  angel  told  him  so.  Had  an  old  maid  of  two  or  three  hundred 
years  of  age,  brought  forth  a  child,  it  would  have  been  much  bet- 
ter presumptive  evidence  of  a  supernatural  conception,  than  Mat- 
thew's story  of  Joseph's  dream  about  his  young  wife. 

Is  it  a  fact  that  Jesus  Christ  died  for  the  sins  of  the  world,  and 
how  is  it  proved  ?  If  a  God,  he  could  not  die,  and  as  a  man  he 
could  not  redeem  ;  how  then  is  this  redemption  proved  to  be  fact  ? 
It  is  said  that  Adam  eat  of  the  forbidden  fruit,  commonly  called 
an  apple,  and  thereby  subjected  himself  and  all  his  posterity  for 
ever  to  eternal  damnation.  This  is  worse  than  visiting  the  sins 
of  the  fathers  upon  the  children  unto  the  third  and  fourth  genera- 
tions. But  how  was  the  death  of  Jesus  Christ  to  affect  or  alter  the 
case  ? — Did  God  thirst  for  blood  ?  If.so,  would  it  not  have  been 
better  to  have  crucified  Adam  at  once  upon  the  forbidden  tree, 
and  made  a  new  man  ?  Would  not  this  have  been  more  creator- 
like,  than  repairing  the  old  one  ?  Or,  did  God,  when  he  made 
Adam,  supposing  the  story  to  be  true,  exclude  himself  from  the 
right  of  making  another  ?  Or  impose  on  himself  the  necessity  .of 
breeding  from  the  old  stock  ?  Priests  should  first  prove  facts  and 
deduce  doctrines  from  them  afterwards.  But  instead  of  this,  they 
assume  every  thing,  and  prove  nothing.  Authorities  drawn  from 
the  bible  are  no  more  than  authorities  drawn  from  other  books, 
unless  it  can  be  proved  that  the  bible  is  revelation. 

This  story  of  the  redemption  will  not  stand  examination.  That 
man  should  redeem  himself  from  the  sin  of  eating  an  apple,  by 
committing  a  murder  on  Jesus  Christ,  is  the  strangest  system  of 
religion  ever  set  up.  Deism  is  perfect  purity  compared  with  this. 
It  is  an  established  principle  with  the  quakers  not  to  shed  blood — 
suppose  then  all  Jerusalem  had  been  quakers  when  Christ  lived, 
there  would  have  been  nobody  to  crucify  him,  and  in  that  case,  if 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  303 

man  is  redeemed  by  his  blood,  which  is  the  belief  of  the  church, 
there  could  have  been  no  redemption — and  the  people  of  Jerusa- 
lem must  all  have  been  damned,  because  they  were  too  good  to 
commit  murder.  The  Christian  system  of  religion  is  an  outrage 
on  common  sense.  Why  is  man  afraid  to  think  ? 

Why  do  not  the  Christians,  to  be  consistent,  make  saints  of  Ju- 
das and  Pontius  Pilate,  for  they  were  the  persons  who  accom- 
phlished  the  act  of  salvation.  The  merit  of  a  sacrifice,  if  there 
can  be  any  merit  in  it,  was  never  in  the  thing  sacrificed,  but  in 
the  persons  offering  up  the  sacrifice — and  therefore  Judas  and 
Pontius  Pilate  ought  to  stand  first  on  the  calendar  of  saints. 

THOMAS  PAINE. 


OF  THE  WORD  RELIGION, 

AND    OTHER   WORDS    OF    UNCERTAIN    SIGNIFICATION. 


THE  word  religion  is  a  word  of  forced  application  when  used 
with  respect  to  the  worship  of  God.  The  root  of  the  word  is  the 
Latin  verb  ligo,  to  tie  or  bind.  From  ligo,  comes  religo,  to  tie  or 
bind  over  again,  or  make  more  fast — from  religo  comes  the  sub- 
stantive religio,  which  with  the  addition  of  n  makes  the  English 
substantive  religion.  The  French  use  the  word  properly — when 
a  woman  enters  a  convent,  she  is  called  a  noviciate,  that  is,  she 
is  upon  trial  or  probation.  When  she  takes  the  oath,  she  is  call- 
ed a  religieuse,  that  is,  she  is  tied  or  bound  by  that  oath  to  the 
performance  of  it.  We  use  the  word  in  the  same  kind  of  sense 
when  we  say  we  will  religiously  perform  the  promise  that  we 
make. 

But  the  word,  without  referring  to  its  etymology,  has,  in  the 
manner  it  is  used,  no  definitive  meaning,  because  it  does  not  de- 
signate what  religion  a  man  is  of.  There  is  :the  religion  of  the 
Chinese,  of  the  Tartars,  of  the  Bramins,  of  the  Persians,  of  the 
Jews,  of  the  Turks,  &c. 

The  word  Christianity  is  equally  as  vague  as  the  word  religion. 
No  two  sectaries  can  agree  what  it  is.  It  is  a  lo  here  and  lo  there. 
The  two  principal  sectaries,  Papists  and  Protestants,  have  often 
cut  each  other's  throats  about  it : — The  Papists  call  the  Protes- 
tants heretics,  and  the  Protestants  call  the  Papists  idolaters. 
The  minor  sectaries  have  shown  the  same  spirit  of  rancour,  but 
as  the  civil  law  restrains  them  from  blood,  they  content  them- 
selves with  preaching  damnation  against  each  other. 


304  MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES. 

The  word  proteslant  has  a  positive  signification  in  the  sense  it 
is  used.  It  means  protesting  against  the  authority  of  the  Pope, 
and  this  is  the  only  article  in  which  the  prostestants  agree.  In 
every  other  sense,  with  respect  to  religion,  the  word  protestant 
is  as  vague  as  the  word  Christian.  When  we  say  an  episcopa- 
lian, a  prebyterian,  a  baptist,  a  quaker,  we  know  what  those  per- 
sons are,  and  wh'at  tenets  they  hold — but  when  we  say  a  chris- 
tain,  we  know  he  is  not  a  Jew  nor  a  Mahometan,  but  we  know 
not  if  he  be  a  trinitarian  or  an  anti-trinitarian,  a  believer  in  what 
is  called  the  immaculate  conception,  or  a  disbeliever,  a  man  of 
seven  sacrament?,  or  of  two  sacraments,  or  of  none.  The  word 
Christian  describes  what  a  man  is  not,  but  not  what  he  is. 

The  word  Theology,  from  Theos,  the  Greek  word  for  God,  and 
meaning  the  study  and  knowledge  of  God,  is  a  word,  that  strictly 
speaking,  belongs  to  Theists  or  Deists,  and  not  to  the  Christians. 
The  head  of  the  Christian  church  is  the  person  called  Christ — but 
the  head  of  the  church  of  the  Theists,  or  Deists,  as  they  are 
more  commonly  called,  from  Deus,  the  Latin  word  for  God,  is  God 
himself,  and  therefore  the  word  Theology  belongs  to  that  church 
which  has  Theos  or  God  for  its  head,  and  not  to  the  Christian 
church  which  has  the  person  called  Christ  for  its  head.  Their 
technical  word  is  Christianity,  and  they  cannot  agree  what  Chris- 
tianity is. 

The  words  revealed  religion,  and  natural  religion,  require  also 
explanation.  They  are  both  invented  terms,  contrived  by  the 
church  for  the  support  of  priest-craft.  With  respect  to  the  first, 
there  is  no  evidence  of  any  such  thing,  except  in  the  universal 
revelation,  that  God  has  made  of  his  power,  his  wisdom,  his  good- 
ness, in  the  structure  of  the  universe,  and  in  all  the  works  of 
creation.  We  have  no  cause  or  ground  from  any  thing  we  be- 
hold in  those  works,  to  suppose  God  would  deal  partially  by  man- 
kind, and  reveal  knowledge  to  one  nation  and  withhold  it  from 
another,  and  then  damn  them  for  not  knowing  it.  The  sun  shines 
an  equal  quantity  of  light  all  over  the  world — and  mankind  in  all 
ages  and  countries  are  endued  with  reason,  and  blessed  with 
sight,  to  read  the  visible  works  of  God  in  the  creation,  and  so  in- 
telligent is  this  book,  that  he  that  t*uns  may  read.  We  admire  the 
wisdom  of  the  ancients,  yet  they  had  no  bibles,  nor  books,  called 
revelation.  They  cultivated  the  reason  that  God  gave  them, 
studied  him  in  his  works,  and  arose  to  eminence. 

As  to  the  bible,  whether  true  or  fabulous,  it  is  a  history,  and 
history  is  not  revelation.  If  Solomon  had  seven  hundred  wives, 
and  three  hundred  concubines,  and  if  Sampson  slept  in  Delilah's 
lap,  and  she  cut  his  hair  off,  the  relation  of  those  things  is  mere 
history,  that  needed  no  revelation  from  heaven  to  tell  it ;  neither 
does  it  need  any  revelation  to  tell  us  that  Sampson  was  a  fool  for 
his  pains,  and  Solomon  too. 


MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES  305 

As  to  the  expression  so  often  used  in  the  bible,  that  the  word 
of  the  Lord  came  to  such  an  one,  or  such  an  one,  it  was  the 
fashion  of  speaking  in  those  times,  like  the  expression  used  by  a 
quaker,  that  the  spirit  moveth  him,  or  that  used  by  priests,  that 
they  have  a  call.  We  ought  not  to  be  deceived  by  phrases  be- 
cause they  are  ancient.  But  if  we  admit  the  supposition  that 
God  would  condescend  to  reveal  himself  in  words,  we  ought  not 
to  believe  it  would  be  in  such  idle  and  profligate  stories  as  are  in 
the  bible,  and  it  is  for  this  reason,  among  others  which  our 
reverence  to  God  inspires,  that  the  Deists  deny  that  the  book 
called  the  bible  is  the  word  of  God,  or  that  it  is  revealed  religion. 

With  respect  to  the  term,  natural  religion,  it  is  upon  the  face 
of  it  the  opposite  of  artificial  religion,  and  it  is  impossible  for 
any  man  to  be  certain  that  what  is  called  revealed  religion,  is  not 
artificial.  Man  has  the  power  of  making  books,  inventing  sto- 
ries of  God,  and  calling  them  revelation  or  the  word  of  God 
The  Koran  exists  as  an  instance  that  this  can  be  done,  and  we 
must  be  credulous  indeed  to  suppose  that  this  is  the  only  in- 
stance, and  Mahomet  the  only  impostor.  The  Jews  could  match 
him,  and  the  church  of  Rome  could  overmatch  the  Jews.  The 
Mahometans  believe  the  Koran,  the  Christians  believe  the  Bible, 
and  it  is  education  makes  all  the  difference. 

Books,  whether  Bibles  or  Korans,  carry  no  evidence  of  being 
the  work  of  any  other  power  than  man.  It  is  only  that  which 
man  cannot  do  that  carries  the  evidence  of  being  the  work  of  a 
superior  power.  Man  could  not  invent  and  make  a  universe — 
he  could  not  invent  nature,  for  nature  is  of  divine  origin.  It  is 
the  laws  by  which  the  universe  is  governed.  When,  therefore, 
we  look  through  nature  up  to  nature's  God,  we  are  in  the  right 
road  of  happiness  ;  but  when  we  trust  to  books  as  the  word  of 
God  and  confide  in  them  as  revealed  religion,  we  are  afloat  on 
an  ocean  of  uncertainty,  and  shatter  into  contending  factions. 
The  term,  therefore,  natural  religion,  explains  itself  to  be  divine 
religion,  and  the  term  revealed  religion  involves  in  it  the  suspicion 
of  being  artificial. 

To  show  the  necessity  of  understanding  the  meaning  of  words, 
I  will  mention  an  instance  of  a  minister,  I  believe  of  the  episco- 
palian church  of  Newark,  in  Jersey.  He  wrote  and  published 
a  book,  and  entitled  it,  "  An  Antidote  to  Deism."  An  antidote  to 
Deism,  must  be  Atheism.  It  has  no  other  antidote — for  what  can 
be  an  antidote  to  the  belief  of  a  God,  but  the  disbelief  of  God. 
Under  the  tuition  of  such  pastors,  what  but  ignorance  and  false 
information  can  be  expected. 

26* 


306  MISCELLANEOUS  PIECES. 


OF  CAIJV  AJVD  ABEL, 


THE  story  of  Cain  and  Abel  is  told  in  the  fourth  chapter  of 
Genesis ;  Cain  was  the  elder  brother,  and  Abel  the  younger, 
and  Cain  killed  Abel.  The  Egyptian  story  of  Typhon  and  Osi- 
ris, and  the  Jewish  story  in  Genesis  of  Cain  and  Abel,  have  the 
appearance  of  being  the  same  story  differently  told,  and  that  it 
came  originally  from  Egypt. 

In  the  Egyptian  story,  Typhon  and  Osiris  are  brothers  ;  Ty- 
phon is  the  elder,  and  Osiris  the  younger,  and  Typhon  kills  Osi- 
ris. The  story  is  an  allegory  on  darkness  and  light  ;  Typhon, 
the  elder  brother,  is  darkness,  because  darkness  was  supposed 
to  be  more  ancient  than  light  :  Osiris  is  the  good  light  who  rules 
during  the  summer  months,  and  brings  forth  the  fruits  of  the 
earth,  and  is  the  favourite,  as  Abel  is  said  to  have  been,  for 
which  Typhon  hates  him  ;  and  when  the  winter  comes,  and  cold 
and  darkness  overspread  the  earth,  Typhon  is  represented  as 
having  killed  Osiris  out  of  malice,  as  Cain  is  said  to  have  killed 
Abel. 

The  two  stories  are  alike  in  their  circumstances  and  their 
event,  and  are  probably  but  the  same  story  ;  what  corroborates 
this  opinion,  is,  that  the  fifth  chapter  of  Genesis  historically  con- 
tradicts the  reality  of  the  story  of  Cain  and  Abel  in  the  fourth 
chapter,  for  though  the  name  of  Selh,  a  son  of  Adam,  is  men- 
tioned in  the  fourth  chapter,  he  is  spoken  of  in  the  fifth  chap- 
ter as  if  he  was  the  first-born  of  Adam.  The  chapter  begins 
thus  : — 

"  This  is  the  book  of  the  generations  of  Adam.  In  the  day 
that  God  created  man,  in  the  likeness  of  God  created  he  him. 
Male  and  female  created  he  them,  and  blessed  them,  and  called 
their  name  Adam  in  the  day  when  they  were  created.  And 
Adam  lived  an  hundred  and  thirty  years  and  begat  a  son,  in  his 
own  likeness  and  after  his  own  image,  and  called  his  name  Seth." 
The  rest  of  the  chapter  goes  on  with  the  genealogy. 

Any  body  reading  this  chapter  cannot  suppose  there  were  any 
sons  'born  before  Seth.  The  chapter  begins  with  what  is  called 
the  creation  of  Jldam,  and  calls  itself  the  book  of  the  generations 
of  Jldam,  yet  no  mention  is  made  of  such  persons  as  Cain  and 
Abel  ;  one  thing,  however,  is  evident  on  the  face  of  these  two 
chapters,  which  is,  that  the  same  person  is  not  the  writer  of  both  ; 
the  most  blundering  historian  could  not  have  committed  himself 
in  such  a  manner. 

Though  I  look  on  every  thing  in  the  first  ten  chapters  of  Gen- 
esis to  be  fiction,  yet  fiction  historically  told  should  be  consistent, 


MISCELLANEOUS  PIECES.  307 

whereas  these  two  chapters  are  not.  The  Cain  and  Abel  of 
Genesis  appear  to  be  no  other  than  the  ancient  Egyptian  story  of 
Typhon  and  Osiris,  the  darkness  and  the  light,  which  answered 
very  well  as  an  allegory  without  being  believed  as  a  fact. 


OF  THE  TOWER  OF  BABEL. 


THE  story  of  the  tower  of  Babel  is  told  in  the  eleventh  chap- 
ter of  Genesis.  It  begins  thus  *— "  And  the  whole  earth  (it  was 
but  a  very  little  part  of  it  they  knew)  was  of  one  language  tlnd 
of  one  speech. — And  it  came  to  pass  as  they  journeyed  from  the 
east,  that  they  found  a  plain  in  the  land  of  Shinar,  and  they  dwelt 
there. — And  they  said  one  to  another,  Go  to,  let  us  make  brick 
and  burn  them  thoroughly,  and  they  had  brick  for  stone,  and 
slime  had  they  for  mortar. — And  they  said,  Go  to,  let  us  build  us 
a  city,  and  a  tower  whose  top  may  reach  unto  heaven,  and  let  us 
make  us  a  name,  lest  we  be  scattered  abroad  upon  the  face  of  the 
whole  earth. — And  the  Lord  came  down  to  see  the  city  and  the 
tower  which  the  children  of  men  builded. — And  the  Lord  said, 
behold  the  people  is  one,  and  they  have  all  one  language,  and 
this  they  begin  to  do,  and  now  nothing  will  be  restrained  from 
them  which  they  have  imagined  to  do. —  Go  to,  let  us  go  down  and 
there  confound  their  language,  that  they  may  not  understr.id  one 
another's  speech. — So  (that  is,  by  that  means)  the  Lord  scatter- 
ed them  abroad  from  thence  upon  the  face  of  all  the  earth,  and 
they  left  off  building  the  city." 

This  is  the  story,  and  a  very  foolish  inconsistent  story  it  is. 
In  the  first  place,  the  familiar  and  irreverend  manner  in  which 
the  Almighty  is  spoken  of  in  this  chapter,  is  offensive  to  a  serious 
rnind.  As  to  the  project  of  building  a  tower  whose  top  should 
reach  to  heaven,  there  never  could  be  a  people  so  foolish  as  to 
have  such  a  notion  ;  but  to  represent  the  Almighty  as  jealous  of 
the  attempt,  as  the  writer  of  the  story  has  done,  is  adding  profa- 
nation to  folly.  "Go  /o,"  say  the  builders,  "  let  us  build  us  a 
tower  whose  top  shall  reach  to  heaven."  "  Go  fo,"  says  God, 
"  let  us  go  down  and  confound  their  language."  This,  quaintness 
is  indecent,  and  the  reason  given  for  it  is  worse,  for,  "  now  no- 
thing will  be  restrained  from  them  which  they  have  imagined  to 
do."  This  is  representing  the  Almighty  as  jealous  of  their  get- 
ting into  heaven.  The  story  is  too  ridiculous,  even  as  a  fable,  to 
account  for  the  diversity  of  languages  in  the  world,  for  which  it 
seems  to  have  been  intended. 


3<J8  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

As  to  the  project  of  confounding  their  language  for  the  pur- 
pose of  making  them  separate,  it  is  altogether  inconsistent  ;  be- 
cause, instead  of  producing  this  effect,  it  would,  by  increasing 
their  difficulties,  render  them  more  necessary  to  each  other,  and 
cause  them  to  keep  together.  Where  could  they  go  to  better 
themselves  ? 

Another  observation  upon  this  story  is,  the  inconsistency  of  it 
with  respect  to  the  opinion  that  the  bible  is  the  word  of  God  giv- 
en for  the  information  of  mankind  :  for  nothing  could  so  effectu- 
ally prevent  such  a  word  being  known  by  mankind  as  confounding 
their  language.  The  people  who  after  this  spoke  different  lan- 
guages could  no  more  understand  such  a  word  generally,  than  the 
builders  of  Babel  could  understand  one  another.  It  would  have 
been  necessary,  therefore,  had  such  word  ever  been  given  or  in- 
tended to  be  given,  that  the  whSle  earth  should  be,  as  they  say 
it  was  at  first,  of  one  language  and  of  one  speech,  and  that  it 
should  never  have  been  confounded. 

The  case  however  is,  that  the  bible  will  not  bear  examination 
in  any  part  of  it,  which  it  would  do  if  it  was  the  word  of  God. 
Those  who  most  believe  it  are  those  who  know  least  about  it,  and 
priests  always  take  care  to  keep  the  inconsistent  and  contradic- 
tory oarts  out  of  sight.  T.  P 


Of  the  religion  of  Deism  compared  with  the  Christian  Religion,  and 
the  superiority  of  the  former  over  the  latter. 


EVERY  person,  of  whatever  religious  denomination  he  may  be, 
is  a  DEIST  in  the  first  article  of  his  Creed.  Deism,  from  the  Latin 
word  Dens,  God,  is  the  belief  of  a  God,  and  this  belief  is  the  first 
article  of  every  man's  creed. 

It  is  on  this  article,  universally  consented  to  by  all  mankind, 
that  the  Deist  builds  his  church,  and  here  he  rests.  Whenever 
we  step  aside  from  this  article,  by  mixing  it  with  articles  of  hu- 
man invention,  we  wander  into  a  labyrinth  of  uncertainty  and  fa- 
ble, and  become  exposed  to  every  kind  of  imposition  by  pretend- 
ers to  revelation.  The  Persian  shows  the  Zendavista  of  Zoro- 
aster, the  lawgiver  of  Persia,  and  calls  it  the  divine  law  ;  the 
Bramin  shows  the  Shaster,  revealed,  he  says,  by  God  to  Brama, 
and  given  to  him  out  of  a  cloud  ;  the  Jew  shows  what  he  calls 
the  law  of  Moses,  given,  he  says,  by  God,  on  the  Mount  Sinai  ; 
the  Christian  shows  a  collection  of  books  and  epistles,  written  by 
nobody  knows  who,  and  called  the  New  Testament  j  and  the 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  309 

Mahometan  shows  the  Koran,  given,  he  says,  by  God  to  Mahom- 
et :  each  of  these  calls  itself  revealed  religion,  and  the  only  true 
word  of  God,  and  this  the  followers  of  each  profess  to  believe 
from  the  habit  of  education,  and  each  believes  the  others  are  im- 
posed upon. 

But  when  the  divine  gift  of  reason  begins  to  expand  itself  in  the 
mind  and  calls  man  to  reflection,  he  then  reads  and  contemplates 
God  in  his  works,  and  not  in  books  pretending  to  be  revelations. 
The  Creation  is  the  bible  of  the  trae  believer  in  God.  Every 
thing  in  this  vast  volume  inspires  him  with  sublime  ideas  of  the 
Creator.  The  little  and  paltry,  and  often  obscene,  tales  of  the 
bible  sink  into  wretchedness  when  put  in  comparison  with  this 
mighty  work.  The  Deist  needs  none  of  those  tricks  and  shows 
called  miracles  to  confirm  his  faith,  for  what  can  be  a  greater  mira- 
cle than  the  Creation  itself,  and  his  own  existence. 

There  is  a  happiness  in  Deism,  when  rightly  understood,  that  is 
not  to  be  found  in  any  other  system  of  religion.  All  other  systems 
have  something  in  them  that  either  shock  our  reason,  or  are  re- 
pugnant to  it,  and  man,  if  he  thinks  at  all,  must  stifle  his  reason  in 
order  to  force  himself  to  believe  them.  But  in  Deism  our  reason 
and  our  belief  become  happily  united.  The  wonderful  structure 
of  the  universe,  and  every  thing  we  behold  in  the  system  of  the 
creation,  prove  to  us,  far  better  than  books  can  do,  the  existence  of 
a  God,  and  at  the  same  time  proclaim  his  attributes.  It  is  by  the 
exercise  of  our  reason  that  we  are  enabled  to  contemplate  God  in 
his  works  and  imitate  him  in  his  ways.  ^Vhen  we  see  his  care  and 
goodness  extended  over  all  his  creatures,  it  teaches  us  our  duty 
towards  each  other,  while  it  calls  forth  our  gratitude  to  him.  It 
is  by  forgetting  God  hi  his  works,  and  running  after  the  books  of 
pretended  revelation  that  man  has  wandered  from  the  straight 
path  of  duty  and  happiness,  and  become  by  turns  the  victim  of 
doubt  and  the  <}upe  of  delusion. 

Except  in  the  first  article  in  the  Christian  creed,  that  of  believ- 
ing in  God,  there  is  not  an  article  in  it  but  fills  the  mind  with 
doubt  as  to  the  truth  of  it,  the  instant  man  begins  to  think.  Now 
every  article  in  a  creed  that  is  necessary  to  the  happiness  and  sal- 
vation of  man,  ought  to  be  as  evident  to  the  reason  and  compre- 
hension of  man  as  the  first  article  is,  for  God  has  not  given  us 
reason  for  the  purpose  of  confounding  us,  but  that  we  should  use 
it  for  our  own  happiness  and  his  glory. 

The  truth  of  the  first  article  is  proved  by  God  himself,  and  is 
universal ;  for  the  creation  is  of  itself  demonst ration  of  the  existence 
of  a  Creator.  But  the  second  article,  that  of  God's  begetting  a 
son,  is  not  proved  in  like  manner,  and  stands  on  no  other  author- 
ity than  that  of  a  tale.  Certain  books  in  what  is  called  the  New 
Testament  tell  us  that  Joseph  dreamed  that  an  angel  told  him  so. 
(Matthew  chap.  1,  v.  20.)  "And  behold  the  angel  of  the  Lord 
appeared  to  Joseph  in  a  dream,  saying,  Joseph  thou  son  of  David, 


310  MISCELLANEOUS  PIECES. 

fear  not  to  take  tmto  thee  Mary  thy  wife,  for  that  which  is  con- 
ceived in  her  is  of  the  Holy  Ghost."  The  evidence  upon  this  ar- 
ticle bears  no  c6mparison  with  the  evidence  upon  the  first  article, 
and  therefore  is  not  entitled  to  the  same  credit,  and  ought  not  to 
be  made  an  article  in  a  creed,  because  the  evidence  of  it  is  defec- 
tive, and  what  evidence  there  is,  is  doubtful  and  suspicious.  We 
do  not  believe  the  first  article  on  the  authority  of  books,  whether 
called  Bibles  or  Korans,  nor  yet  on  the  visionary  authority  of 
dreams,  but  on  the  authority  of  God's  own  visible  works  in  the 
creation.  The  nations  who  never  heard  of  such  books,  nor  of 
such  people  as  Jews,  Christians,  or  Mahometans,  believe  the  exist- 
ence of  a  God  as  fully  as  we  do,  because  it  is  self  evident.  The 
work  of  man's  hands  is  a  proof  of  the  existence  of  man  as  fully  as 
his  personal  appearance  would  be.  When  we  see  a  watch,  we 
have  as  positive  evidence  of  the  existence  of  a  watch-maker,  as 
if  we  saw  him  ;  and  in  like  manner  the  creation  is  evidence  to  our 
reason  and  our  senses  of  the  existence  of  a  Creator.  But  there 
is  nothing  in  the  works  of  God  that  is  evidence  that  he  begat  a  son, 
nor  any  thing  in  the  system  of  creation  that  corroborates  such  an 
idea,  and  therefore  we  are  not  authorized  in  believing  it. 

But  presumption  can  assume  any  thing,  and  therefore  it  makes 
Joseph's  dream  to  be  of  equal  authority  with  the  existence  of 
God,  and  to  help  it  on  calls  it  revelation.  It  is  impossible  for  the 
mind  of  man  in  its  serious  moments,  however  it  may  have  been 
entangled  by  education,  or  beset  by  priest-craft,  not  to  stand  still 
and  doubt  "upon  the  truth  of  this  article  and  of  its  creed.  But 
this  is  not  all. 

The  second  article  of  the  Christian  creed  having  brought  the 
son  of  Mary  into  the  world,  (and  this  Mary,  according  to  the 
chronological  tables,  was  a  girl  of  only  fifteen  years  of  age  when 
this  son  was  born,)  the  next  article  goes  on  to  account  for  his  be- 
ing begotten,  which  was,  that  when  he  grew  a  man  he  should  be 
put  to  death,  to  expiate,  they  say,  the  sin  that  Adam  brought  into 
the  world  by  eating  an  apple  or  some  kind  of  forbidden  fruit. 

But  though  this  is  the  creed  of  the  church  of  Rome,  from 
whence  the  Protestants  borrowed  it,  it  is  a  creed  which  that  church 
has  manufactured  of  itself,  for  it  is  not  contained  in,  nor  derived 
from,  the  book  called  the  New  Testament.  The  four  books  call- 
ed the  Evangelists,  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke,  and  John,  which  give, 
or  pretend  to  give,  the  birth,  sayings,  life,  preaching,  and  death 
of  Jesus  Christ,  make  no  mention  of  what  is  called  the  fall  of 
man  ;  nor  is  the  name  of  Adam  to  be  found  in  any  of  those  books, 
which  it  certainly  would  be,  if  the  writers  of  them  believed  that 
Jesus  was  begotten,  born,  and  died  for  the  purpose  of  redeeming 
mankind  from  the  sin  which  Adam  had  brought  into  the  world. 
Jesus  never  speaks  of  Adam  himself,  of  the  garden  of  Eden,  nor 
of  what  is  called  the  fall  of  man. 

But  the  church  of  Rome  having  set  up  its  new  religion  which 


MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES.  311 

it  called  Christianity,  and  invented  the  creed  which  it  named  the 
apostles  creed,  in  which  it  calls  Jesus  the  only  son  of  God,  con- 
ceived by  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  born  of  the  Virgin  Mary,  things  of 
which  it  is  impossible  that  man  or  woman  can  have  any  idea,  and 
consequently  no  belief  but  in  words  ;  and  for  which  there  is  no 
authority  but  the  idle  story  of  Joseph's  dream  in  the  first  chapter 
of  Matthew,  which  any  designing  impostor  or  foolish  fanatic 
might  make.  It  then  manufactured  the  allegories  in  the  book 
of  Genesis  into  fact,  and  the  allegorical  tree  of  life  and  the  tree 
of.  knowledge  into  real  trees,  contrary  to  the  belief  of  the  first 
Christians,  and  for  which  there  is  not  the  least  authority  in  any 
of  the  books  of  the  New  Testament  ;  for  in  none  of  them  is  there 
any  mention  made  of  such  place  as  the  Garden  of  Eden,  nor  of 
any  thing  that  is  said  to  have  happened  there. 

But  the  church  of  Jlome  could  not  erect  the  person  called  Je- 
sus into  a  Saviour  of  the  world  without  making  the  allegories  in 
the  book  of  Genesis  into  fact,  though  the  New  Testament,  as  be- 
fore observed,  gives  no  authority  for  it.  All  at  once  the  allego- 
rical tree  of  knowledge  became,  according  to  the  church,  a  real 
tree,  the  fruit  of  it  real  fruit,  and  the  eating  of  it  sinful.  As 
priest-craft  was  always  the  enemy  of  knowledge,  because  priest- 
craft supports  itself  by  keeping  people  in  delusion  and  ignorance, 
it  was  consistent  with  its  policy  to  make  the  acqusition  of  knowP" 
edge  a  real  sin. 

The  church  of  Rome  having  done  this,  it  then  brings  forward 
Jesus  the  son  of  Mary  as  suffering  death  to  redeem  mankind 
from  sin,  which  Adam,  it  says,  had  brought  into  the  world  by  eat- 
ing the  fruit  of  the  tree  of  knowledge.  But  as  it  is  impossible 
for  reason  to  believe  such  a  story,  because  it  can  see  no  reason 
for  it,  nor  have  any  evidence  of  it,  the  church  then  tells  us  we 
must  not  regard  our  reason,  but  must  believe,  as  it  were,  and  that 
through  thick  and  thin,  as  if  God  had  given  man  reason  like  a 
plaything,  or  a  rattle,  on  purpose  to  make  fun  of  him.  Reason 
is  the  forbidden  tree  of  priest-craft,  and  may  serve  to  explain  the 
allegory  of  the  forbidden  tree  of  knowledge,  for  we  may  reason- 
ably suppose  the  allegory  had  some  meaning  and  application  at 
the  time  it  was  invented.  It  was  the  practice  of  the  eastern  na- 
tions to  convey  their  meaning  by  allegory,  and  relate  it  in  the 
manner  of  fact.  Jeeus  followed  the  same- method,  yet  nobody 
ever  supposed  the  allegory  or  parable  of  the  Rich  Man  and  Laz- 
arus, the  Prodigal  Son,  the  ten  Virgins,  &c.  were  facts.  Why 
then  should  the  tree  of  knowledge,  which  is  far  more  romantic  in 
idea  than  the  parables  in  the  New  Testament  are,  be  supposed 
to  be  a  real  tree.*  The  answer  to  this  is,  because  the  church 

*  The  remark  of  Emperor  Julien,  on  the  story  of  the  Tree  of  Knowledge  is  worth 
observing,  "  If,"  said  he,  "  there  ever  had  been,  or  could  he,  a  Tree  of  Knowledge, 
instead  of  God  forbidding  man  to  eat  thereof,  it  would  be  that  of  which  he  would  or- 
der him  to  eat  the  most."  ' 


312  MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES. 

could  not  make  its  new  fangled  system,  which  it  called  Christian 
ity,  hold  together  without  it.     To  have  made  Christ  to  die  on  ac- 
count of  an  allegorical  tree  would  have  been  too  bare-faced  a 
fable. 

But  the  account,  as  it  is  given  of  Jesus  in  the  New  Testament, 
even  visionary  as  it  is,  does  not  support  the  creed  of  the  church 
that  he  died  for  the  redemption  of  the  world.  According  to  that 
account  he  was  crucified  and  buried  on  Friday,  and  rose  again 
in  good  health  on  the  Sunday  morning,  for  we  do  not  hear  that 
he  was  sick.  This  cannot  be  called  dying,  and  is  rather  maku.g 
fun  of  death  than  suffering  it.  There  are  thousands  of  men  and 
women  also,  who,  if  they  could  know  they  should  come  back 
again  in  good  health  in  about  thirty-six  hours,  would  prefer  such 
kind  of  death  for  the  sake  of  the  experiment,  and  to  know  what 
the  other  side  of  the  grave  was.  Why  ttyen  should  that  which 
would  be  only  a  voyage  of  curious  amusement  to  us  be  magnifi- 
ed into  merit  and  sufferings  in  him  ?  If  a  God  he  could  not  suf- 
fer death,  for  immortality  cannot  die,  and  as  a  man  his  death 
could  be  no  more  than  the  death  of  any  other  person. 

The  belief  of  the  redemption  of  Jesus  Christ  is  altogether 
an  invention  of  the  church  of  Rome,  not  the  doctrine  of  the 
New  Testament.  What  the  writers  cf  the  New  Testament  at- 
tempt to  prove  by  the  story  of  Jesus  is,  the  resurrection  of  the 
same  body  from  the  grave,  which  was  the  belief  of  the  Pharisees, 
in  opposition  to  the  Sadducees  (a  sect  of  Jews)  who  denied  it. 
Paul,  who  was  brought  up  a  Pharisee,  labours  hard  at  this  point, 
for  it  was  the  creed  of  his  'own  Pharisaical  church.  The  XV. 
chap.  1st  of  Corinthians  is  full  of  supposed  cases  and  assertions 
about  the  resurrection  of  the  same  body,  but  there  is  not  a  word 
in  it  about  redemption.  This  chapter  makes  part  of  the  funeral 
service  of  the  Episcopal  church.  The  dogma  of  the  redemp- 
tion is  the  fable  of  priest-craft  invented  since  the  time  the  New 
Testament  was  compiled,  and  the  agreeable  delusion  of  it  suited 
with  the  depravity  of  immoral  livers.  When  men  are  taught  to 
ascribe  all  their  crimes  and  vices  to  the  temptations  of  the  Devil, 
and  to  believe  that  Jesus,  by  his  death,  rubs  all  off  and  pays  their 
passage  to  heaven  gratis,  they  become  as  careless  in  morals  as 
a  spendthrift  would  be  of  money,  were  he  told  that  his  father 
had  engaged  to  pay  off  all  his  scores.  It  is  a  doctrine,  not  only 
dangerous  to  morals  in  this  world,  but  to  our  happiness  in  the 
next  world,  because  it  holds  out  such  a  cheap,  easy,  and  lazy 
way  of  getting  to  heaven  as  has  a  tendency  to  induce  men  to 
hug  the  delusion  of  it  to  their  own  injury. 

But  there  are  times  when  men  have  serious  thoughts,  and  it  is 
at  such  times  when  they  begin  to  think,  that  they  begin  to  doubt 
the  truth  of  the  Christian  religion,  and  well  they  may,  for  it  is 
too  fanciful  and  too  full  of  conjecture,  inconsistency,  improbabil- 
ity, and  irrationality,  to  afford  consolation  to  the  thoughtful  man. 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  313 

His  reason  revolts  against  his  creed.  He  sees  that  none  of  its 
articles  are  proved  or  can  be  proved.  He  may  believe  that  such 
a  person  as  is  called  Jesus  (for  Christ  was  not  his  name)  was 
born  and  grew  to  be  a  man,  because  it  is  no  more  than  a  natural 
and  probable  case.  But  who  is  to  prove  he  is  the  son  of  God, 
that  he  was  begotten  by  the  Holy  Ghost  ?  Of  these  things  there 
can  be  no  proof ;  and  that  which  admits  not  of  proof,  and  is 
against  the  laws  of  probability,  and  the  order  of  nature,  which 
God  himself  has  established,  is  not  an  object  for  belief.  God  has 
not  given  man  reason  to  embarrass  him,  but  to  prevent  his  being 
imposed  upon. 

He  may  believe  that  Jesus  was  crucified,  because  many  oth- 
ers were  crucified,  but  who  is  to  prove  he  was  crucified  for  the 
sins  of  the  world  ?  This  article  has  no  evidence,  not  even  in  the 
New  Testament  ;  and  if  it  had,  where  is  the  proof  that  the 
New  Testament,  in  relating  things  neither  probable  nor  provea- 
ble,  is  to  be  believed  as  true  ?  When  an  article  in  a  creed  does 
not  admit  of  proof  nor  of  probability,  the  salvo  is  to  call  it  reve- 
lation :  But  this  is  only  putting  one  difficulty  in  the  place  of  an- 
other, for  it  is  as  impossible  to  prove  a  thing  to  be  revelation  as 
it  is  to  prove  that  Mary  was  gotten  with  child  by  the  Holy  Ghost. 

Here  it  is  that  the  religion  of  Deism  is  superior  to  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  It  is  free  from  all  those  invented  and  torturing 
articles  that  shock  our  reason  or  injure  our  humanity,  and  with 
which  the  Christian  religion  abounds.  Its  creed  is  pure  and 
sublimely  simple.  It  believes  in  God,  and  there  it  rests.  It 
honours  reason  as  the  choicest  gift  of  God  to  man,  and  the  fac- 
ulty by  which  he  is  enabled  to  contemplate  the  power,  wisdom 
and  goodness  of  the  Creator  displayed  in  the  creation  ;  and  re- 
posing itself  on  his  protection,  both  here  and  hereafter,  it  avoids 
all  presumptuous  beliefs,  and  rejects,  as  the  fabulous  inventions 
of  men,  all  books  pretending  to  revelation,  T  P. 

27 


314  MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES. 


TO  THE  MEMBERS  OF  THE  SOCIETY,  STYLING  ITSELF  THE 
MISSIONARY  SOCIETY. 


The  New- York  Gazette  of  the  16th  (August)  contains  the  following 
artick — "  On  Tuesday,  a  Committee  of  the  Missionary  Society, 
consisting  chiefly  of  distinguished  Clergymen,  had  an  interview  at 
the  City  Hotel,  with  the  Chiefs  of  the.  Osage  tribe  of  Indians, 
now  in  this  City,  (New-  York)  to  whom  they  presented  a  Bible, 
together  witii  an  Jladress,  the  object  of  which  was,'to  inform  them 
that  this  good  book  contained  the  will  and  laws  of  the  GREAT 
SPIRIT." 


IT  is  to  be  hoped  some  humane  person  will,  on  account  of  our 
people  on  the  frontiers,  as  well  as  of  the  Indians,  undeceive 
them  with  respect  to  the  present  the  Missionaries  have  made 
them,  and  which  they  call  a  good  book,  containing,  they  say,  the 
will  and  laws  of  the  GREAT  SPIRIT.  Can  those  Missionaries 
suppose  that  the  assassination  of  men,  women,  and  children,  and 
sucking  infants,  related  in  the  books  ascribed  to  Moses,  Joshua, 
&c.  and  blasphemously  said  to  be  done  by  the  command  of  the 
Lord,  the  Great  Spirit,  can  be  edifying  to  our  Indian  neighbours, 
or  advantageous  to  us  ?  Is  not  the  Bible  warfare  the  same  kind 
of  warfare  as  the  Indians  themselves  carry  on,  that  of  indiscrim- 
inate destruction,  and  against  which  humanity  shudders  ;  can  the 
horrid  examples  and  vulgar  obscenity,  with  which  the  Bible 
abounds,  improve  the  morals,  or  civilize  the  manners  of  the  In- 
dians ?  Will  they  learn  sobriety  and  decency  from  drunken 
Noah  and  beastly  Lot  ;  or  will  their  daughters  be  edified  by  the 
example  of  Lot's  daughters  ?  Will  the  prisoners  they  take  in 
war  be  treated  the  better  by  their  knowing  the  horrid  story  of 
Samuel's  hewing  Agag  in  pieces  like  a  block  of  wood,  or  David's 
putting  them  under  harrows  of  Iron  ?  Will  not  the  shocking 
accounts  of  the  destruction  of  the  Canaanites  when  the  Israel- 
ites invaded  their  country,  suggest  the  idea  that  we  may  serve 
them  in  the  same  manner,  or  the  accounts  stir  them  up  to  do  the 
like  to  our  people  on  the  frontiers,  and  then  justify  the  assassina- 
tion by  the  Bible  the  Missionaries  have  given  them  ?  Will  those 
Missionary  Societies  never  leave  off  doing  mischief  ? 

In  the  account  which  this  missionary  Committee  gave  of  their 
interview,  they  make  the  Chief  of  the  Indians  to  say,  that,  *'  as 
neither  he  nor  his  people  could  read  it,  he  begged  that  some 
good  white  man  might  be  sent  to  instruct  them." 

It  is  necessary  the  General  Government  keep  a  strict  eye  over 
those  Missionary  Societies,  who  under  the  pretence  of  instruct- 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES  315 

ing  the  Indians,  send  spies  into  their  country  to  find  out  the  best 
lands.  No  society  should  be  permitted  to  have  intercourse  with 
the  Indian  tribes,  nor  send  any  person  among  them,  but  with  the 
knowledge  and  consent  of  the  Government.  The  present  ad- 
ministration has  brought  the  Indians  into  a  good  disposition,  and 
is  improving  them  in  the  moral  and  civil  comforts  of  life  ;  but  if 
these  self-created  societies  be  suffered  to  interfere,  and  send  their 
speculating  Missionaries  among  them,  the  laudable  object  of 
Government  will  be  defeated.  Priests,  we  know,  are  not  remark- 
able for  doing  any  thing  gratis  ;  they  have,  in  general,  some 
scheme  in  every  thing  they  do,  either  to  impose  on  the  ignorant 
or  derange  the  operations  of  Government. 

A  FRIEND  TO  THE  INDIANS. 


OF  THE  SABBATH  DAY  OF  CONNECTICUT. 


THE  word  Sabbath  means  REST,  that  is,  cessation  from  labour  ; 
but  the  stupid  Blue  Laws*  of  Connecticut  make  a  labour  of  rest, 
for  they  oblige  a  person  to  sit  still  from  sun-rise  to  sun-set  on  a 
Sabbath  day,  which  is  hard  work.  Fanaticism  made  those  laws, 
and  hypocrisy  pretends  to  reverence  them,  for  where  such  laws 
prevail  hypocrisy  will  prevail  also. 

One  of  those  laws  says,  "  No  person  shall  run  on  a  Sabbath 
day,  nor  walk  in  his  garden,  nor  elsewhere,  but  reverently  to  and 
from  meeting."  These  fanatical  hypocrites  forget  that  God 
dwells  not  in  temples  made  with  hands,  and  that  the  earth  is  full 
of  his  glory.  One  of  the  finest  scenes  and  subjects  of  religious 
contemplation  is  to  walk  into  the  woods  and  fields,  and  survey 
the  works  of  the  God  of  the  Creation.  The  wide  expanse  of 
heaven,  the  earth  covered  with  verdure,  the  lofty  forest,  the  wav- 
ing corn,  the  magnificent  roll  of  mighty  rivers,  and  the  murmur- 
ing melody  of  the  cheerful  brooks,  are  scenes  that  inspire  the 
mind  with  gratitude  and  delight  ;  but  this  the  gloomy  Calvinist 
of  Connecticut  must  not  behold  on  a  Sabbath  day.  Entombed 
within  the  Walls  of  his  dwelling,  he  shuts  from  his  view  the  tem- 
ple of  creation.  The  sun  shines  no  joy  to  him.  The  gladden- 
ing voice  of  nature  calls  on  him  in  /vain.  He  is  deaf,  dumb,  and 
blind  to  every  thing  around  him  that  God  has  made.  Such  is 
the  Sabbath  day  of  Connecticut. 

From  whence  could  come  this  miserable  notion  of  devo'tion  ? 
It  comes  from  the  gloominess  of  the  Calvinistic  creed.  If  men 

»  They  were  called  Blue  Laws  because  they  were  originally  printed  on  blue  paper, 


316  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

love  darkness  rather  than  light,  because  their  works  are  evil,  the 
ulcerated  mind  of  a  Calvinist,  who  sees  God  only  in  terror,  and 
sits  brooding  over  the  scenes  of  hell  and  damnation,  can  have 
no  joy  in  beholding  the  glories  of  the  creation.  Nothing  in  that 
mighty  and  wondrous  system  accords  with  his  principles  or  his 
devotion.  He  sees  nothing  there  that  tells  him  that  God  created 
millions  on  purpose  to  be  damned,  and  that  children  of  a  span 
long  are  born  to  burn  for  ever  in  hell.  The  creation  preaches  a 
different  doctrine  to  this.  We  there  see  that  the  care  and  good- 
ness of  God  is  extended  impartially  over  all  the  creatures  he  has 
made.  The  worm  of  the  earth  shares  his  protection  equally  with 
the  elephant  of  the  desert.  The  grass  that  springs  beneath  our 
feet  grows  by  his  bounty  as  well  as  the  cedars  of  Lebanon.  Ev- 
ery thing  in  the  creation  reproaches  the  Calvinist  with  unjust  ide- 
as of  God,  and  disowns  the  hardness  and  ingratitude  of  his  prin- 
ciples. Therefore  he  shuns  the  sight  of  them  on  a  Sabbath  day. 
AN  ENEMY  TO  CANT  AND  IMPOSITION 


OF  THE  OLD  AND  NEW  TESTAMENT. 


ARCHBISHOP  Tillotson  says,  "The  difference  between  the 
style  of  the  Old  and  New  Testament  is  so  very  remarkable,  that 
one  of  the  greatest  sects  in  the  primitive  times,  did,  upon  this 
very  ground,  found  their  heresy  of  Uvo  Gods,  the  one  evil,  fierce,, 
and  cruel,  whom  they  called  the  God  of  the  Old  Testament  -r 
the  other  good,  kind,  and  merciful,  whom  they  called  the  God  of 
the  New  Testament ;  so  great  a  difference  is  there  between  the 
representations  that  are  given  of  God  in  the  books  of  the  Jewish 
and  Christian  Religion,  as  to  give,  at  least,  some  colour  and  pre~ 
tcnce  to  an  imagination  of  two  Gods."  Thus  far  Tillotson. 

But  the  case  was,  that  as  the  Church  had  picked  out  several 
passages  from  the  Old  Testament,  which  she  most  absurdly  and 
falsely  calls  prophecies  of  Jesus  Christ,  (whereas  there  is  no  pro- 
phecy of  any  such  person,  as  any  one  may  see  by  examining  the 
passages  and  the  cases  to  which  they  apply,)  she  was  under  the 
necessity  of  keeping  up  the  credit  of  the  Old  Testament,  be- 
cause if  that  fell  the  other  would  soon  follow,  and  the  Christian 
system  of  faith  would  soon  be  at  an  end.  As  a  book  of  morals, 
there  are  several  parts  of  the  New  Testament  that  are  good  ; 
but  they  are  no  other  than  what  had  been  preached  in  the  East- 
ern world  several  hundred  years  before  Christ  was  born.  Con- 
fucius, the  Chinese  philosopher,  Who  lived  five  hundred  years 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES  317 

before  the  time  of  Christ,  says,  acknowledge  thy  benefits  by  the 
return  of  benefits,  but  never  revenge  injuries. 

The  clergy  in  Popish  countries  were  cunning  enough  to  know, 
that  if  the  Old  Testament  was  made  public,  the  fallacy  of  the 
New,  with  respect  to  Christ,  would  be  detected,  and  they  pro- 
hibited the  use  of  it,  and  always  took  it  away  wherever  they 
found  it.  The  Deists,  on  the  contrary,  always  encouraged  the 
reading  it,  that  people  mighf  see  and  judge  for  themselves,  that 
a  Book  so  full  of  contradictions  and  wickedness,  could  not  be 
the  word  of  God,  and  that  we  dishonour  God  by  ascribing  it  to 
him. 

A  TRUE  DEIST. 


Hints  towards  forming  a  Society  for  inquiring  into  the  truth  'or 
falsehood  of  ancient  History,  so  far  as  History  is  connected  with 
systems  of  religion,  ancient  and  modern. 


It  has  been  customary  to  class  history  into  three  divisions,  dis- 
tinguished by  the  names  of  Sacred,  Profane,  and  Ecclesiastical. 
By  the  first  is  meant  the  Bible  ;  by  'the  second,  the  history  of 
nations,  of  men  and  things  ;  and  by  the  third,  the  history  of  the 
church  and  its  priesthood. 

Nothing  is  more  easy  than  to  give  names,  and  therefore  mere 
names  signify  nothing  unless  they  lead  to  the  discovery  of  some 
cause  for  which  that  name  was  given.  For  example,  Sunday  is 
the  name  given  to  the  first  day  of  the  week,  in  the  English  lan- 
guage, and  it  is  the  same  in  the  Latin,  that  is,  it  has  the  same 
meaning,  (Dies  Solis)  and  also  in  the  German,  and  in  several 
other  languages.  Why  then  was  this  name  given  to  that  day  ? 
Because  it  was  the  day  dedicated  by  the  ancient  world  to  the 
luminary,  which  in  English  we  call  the  Sun,  and  therefore  the 
day  Sun-day,  or  the  day  of  the  Sun  ;  as  in  the  like  manner  we 
call  the  second  day  Monday,  the  day  dedicated  to  the  Moon. 

Here  the  name,  Sunday,  leads  to  the  cause  of  its  being  called 
so,  and  we  have  visible  evidence  of  the  fact,  because  we  behold 
the  Sun  from  whence  the  name  comes  ;  but  this  is  not  the  case 
when  we  distinguish  one  part  of  history  from  another  by  the 
name  of  Sacred.  All  histories  have  been  written  by  men.  We 
have  no  evidence,  nor  any  cause  to  believe,  that  any  have  been 
written  by  God.  That  part  of  the  Bible  called  the  Old  Testa- 
ment, is  the  history  of  the  Jewish  nation,  from  the  time  of  Abra- 
ham, which  begins  in  the  llth  chap,  of  Genesis,  to  the  downfall 


MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES. 

of  that  nation  by  Nebuchadnezzar,  and  is  no  more  entitled  to  be 
called  sacred  than  any  other  history.  It  is  altogether  the  con- 
trivance of  priestcraft  that  has  given  it  that  name.  So  far  from 
its  being  sacred,  it  has  not  the  appearance  of  being  true  in  many 
of  the  things  it  relates.  It  must  be  better  authority  than  a  book, 
which  any  impostor  might  make,  as  Mahomet  made  the  Koran, 
to  make  a  thoughtful  man  believe  that  the  sun  and  moon  stood 
still,  or  that  Moses  and  Aaron  turrieo!  the  Nile,  which  is  larger 
than  the  Delaware,  into  blood,  and  that  the  Egyptian  magicians 
did  the  same.  These  things  have  too  much  the  appearance  of 
romance  to  be  believed  for  fact. 

It  would  be  of  use  to  inquire,  and  ascertain  the  time,  when 
that  part  of  the  bible  called  the  Old  Testament  first  appeared. 
From  all  that  can  be  collected  there  was  no  such  book  till  after 
the  Jews  returned  from  captivity  in  Babylon,  and  that  it  is  the 
work  of  the  Pharsees  of  the  Second  Temple.  How  they  came 
to  make  the  19th  chapter  of  the  2d  book  of  kings,  and  the  37th 
of  Isaiah,  word  for  word  alike,  can  only  be  accounted  for  by 
their  having  no  plan  to  go  by,  and  not  knowing  what  they  were 
about.  The  same  is  the  case  with  respect  to  the  last  verses  in 
the  2d  book  of  Chronicles,  and  the  first  verses  in  Ezra,  they  also 
are  word  for  word  alike,  which  shows  that  the  Bible  has  been  put 
together  at  random. 

But  besides  these  things  there  is  great  reason  to  believe  we 
have  been  imposed  upon,  with  respect  to  the  antiquity  of  the 
bible,  and  especially  with  respect  to  the  books  ascribed  to  Moses. 
Herodotus,  who  is  called  the  father  of  history,  and  is  the  most 
ancient  historian  whose  works  have  reached  to  our  time,  and 
who  travelled  into  Egypt,  conversed  with  the  priests,  historians, 
astronomers,  and  learned  men  of  that  country,  for  the  purpose 
of  obtaining  all  the  information  of  it  he  could,  and  who  gives  an 
account  of  the  ancient  state  of  it,  makes  no  mention  of  such  a 
man  as  Moses,  though  the  bible  makes  him  to  have  been  the 
greatest  hero  there,  nor  of  any  one  circumstance  mentioned  in 
the  book  of  Exodus,  respecting  Egypt,  such  as  turning  the  riv- 
ers into  blood,  the  dust  into  lice,  the  death  of  the  first  born 
throughout  all  the  land  of  Egypt,  the  passage  of  the  Red-sea, 
the  drowning  of  Pharaoh  and  all  his  host,  things  which  could 
not  have  been  a  secret  in  Egypt,  and  must  have  been  generally 
known,  had  they  been  facts  ;  and  therefore  as  no  such  things 
were  known  in  Egypt,  nor  any  such  man  as  Moses,  at  the  time 
Herodotus  was  there,  which  is  about  two  thousand  two  hundred 
years  ago,  it  shows  that  the  account  of  these  things  in  the  book 
ascribed  to  Moses  is  a  made  story  of  later  times,  that  is,  after 
the  return  of  the  Jews  from  the  Babylonian  captivity,  and  that 
Moses  is  not  the  author  of  the  books  ascribed  to  him. 

With  respect  to  the  cosmogany,  or  account  of  the  creation  in 
the  first  chapter  of  Genesis,  of  the  Garden  of  Eden  in  the  sec- 


MISCELLANEOUS    FTE'CE'S.  319 

ond  chapter,  and  of  what  is  called  the  fall  of  man  in  the  third 
chapter,  there  is  something  concerning  them  we  are  not  histori- 
cally acquainted  with.  In  none  of  the  books  of  the  bible  after 
Genesis,  are  any  of  these  things  mentioned,  or  even  alluded  to. 
How  is  this  to  be  accounted  for  ?  The  obvious  inference  is,  that 
either  they  were  not  known,  or  not  believed  to  be  facts,  by  the 
writers  of  the  other  books  of  the  bible,  and  that  Moses  is  not  the 
author  of  the  chapters  where  these  accounts  are  given. 

The  next  question  on  the  case  is,  how  did  the  Jews  come  by 
these  notions,  and  at  what  time  were  they  written  ? 

To  answer  this  question  we  must  first  consider  what  the  state 
of  the  world  was  at  the  time  the  Jews  began  to  be  a  people,  for 
the  Jews  are  but  a  modern  race,  compared  with  the  antiquity  of 
other  nations.  At  the  time  there  were,  even  by  their  own  ac- 
count, but  thirteen  Jews  or  Israelites  in  the  world,  Jacob  and  his 
twelve  sons,  and  four  of  these  were  bastards.  The  nations  of 
Egypt,  Chaldea,  Persia  and  India,  were  great  and  populous; 
abounding  in  learning  and  science,  particularly  in  the  knowledge 
of  Astronomy,  of  which  the  Jews  were  always  ignorant.  The 
chronological  tables  mention,  that  eclipses  were  observed  -at  Ba- 
bylon above  two  thousand  years  before  the  Christian  era,  which 
was  before  there  was  a  single  Jew  or  Israelite  in  the  world. 

All  those  ancient  nations  had  their  cosmoganies,  that  is,  their 
accounts  how  the  creation  was  made,  long  before  there  was  such 
people  as  Jews  or  Israelites.  An  account  of  these  cosmoganies 
of  India  and  Persia  is  given  by  Henry  Lord,  Chaplain  to  the 
East  India  Company,  at  Surat,  and  published  in  London  in  1630. 
The  writer  of  this  has  seen  a  copy  of  the  edition  of  1630,  and 
made  extracts  from  it.  The  work,  which  is  now  scarce,  was 
dedicated  by  Lord  to  the  Arch  Bishop  of  Canterbury. 

We  know  that  the  Jews  were  carried  captives  into  Babylon,  by 
Nebuchadnezzar,  and  remained  in  captivity  several  years,  when 
they  were  liberated  by  Cyrus,  king  of  Persia.  During  their  captiv- 
ity they  would  have  had  an  opportunity  of  acquiring  some  knowl- 
edge of  the  cosmogany  of  the  Persians,  or  at  least  of  getting  some 
ideas  how  to  fabricate  one  to  put  at  the  head  of  their  own  histo- 
ry after  their  return  from  captivity.  This  will  account  for  the 
cause,  for  some  cause  there  must  have  been,  that  no  mention,  nor 
reference  is  made  to  the  cosmogany  in  Genesis  in  any  of  the 
books  of  the  bible,  supposed  to  have  been  written  before  the 
captivity,  nor  is  the  name  of  Adam  to  be  found  in  any  of  those 
books. 

The  books  of  Chronicles  were  written  after  the  return  of  the 
Jews  from  captivity,  for  the  third  chapter  of  the  first  book  gives 
a  list  of  all  the  Jewish  kings  from  David  to  Zedekiah,  who  was 
carried  captive  into  Babylon,  and  to  four  generations  beyond  the 
time  of  Zedekiah.  In  the  first  verse  of  the  first  chapter  of  this 
book  the  name  of  Adam  is  mentioned,  but  not  in  any  book  in  the 


320  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

bible,  written  before  that  time,  nor  could  it  be,  for  Adam  and  Eve 
are  names  taken  from  the  cosmogany  of  the  Persians.  Henry 
Lord,  in  his-  book,  written  from  Surat,  and  dedicated,  as  I  have 
already  said,  to  the  Arch  Bishop  of  Canterbury,  says  that  in  the 
Persian  cosmogany  the  name  of  the  first  man  was  Jidamoh,  and 
of  the  woman  Hevah*  From  hence  comes  the  Adam  and  Eve 
of  the  book  of  Genesis.  In  the  cosmogany  of  India,  of  which 
I  shall  speak  in  a  future  number,  the  name  of  the  first  man  was 
Pourous,  and  of  the  woman  Parcoutee.  We  want  a  knowledge 
of  the  Sanscrit  language  of  India  to  understand  the  meaning  of 
the  names,  and  I  mentioned  it  in  this  place,  only  to  show  that  it 
is  from  the  cosmogany  of  Persia  rather  than  that  of  India  that 
the  cosmogany  in  Genesis  has  been  fabricated  by  the  Jews,  who 
returned  from  captivity  by  the  liberality  of  Cyrus,  king  of  Per- 
sia. There  is,  however,  reason  to  conclude,  on  the  authority  of 
Sir  William  Jones,  who  resided  several  years  in  India,  that  these 
names  were  very  expressive  in  the  language  to  which  they  be- 
longed, for  in  speaking  of  this  language  he  says  (see  the  Asiatic 
researches)  "  The  Sanscrit  language,  whatever  be  its  antiquity, 
is  of  wonderful  structure  ;  it  is  more  perfect  than  the  Greek,  more 
copious  than  the  Latin,  and  more  exquisitely  refined  than  either." 
These  hints,  which  are  intended  to  be  continued,  will  serve  to 
show  that  a  society  for  inquiring  into  the  ancient  state  of  the 
world,  and  the  state  of  ancient  history,  so  far  as  history  is  con- 
nected with  systems  of  religion  ancient  and  modern,  may  become 
a  useful  and  instructive  institution.  There  is  good  reason  to  be- 
lieve we  have  been  in  great  error,  with  respect  to  the  antiquity 
of  the  Bible,  as  well  as  imposed  upon  by  its  contents.  Truth 
ought  to  be  the  object  of  every  man  ;  for  without  truth  there  can 
be  no  real  happiness  to  a  thoughtful  mind,  or  any  assurance  of 
happiness  hereafter.  It  is  the  duty  of  man  to  obtain  all  the 
knowledge  he  can,  and  then  make  the  best  use  of  it 

T.  P. 


TO  MR.  MOORE,  OF  NEW  YORK, 

COMMONLY   CALLED 

BISHOP  MOORE. 


I  HAVE  read  in  the  newspapers  your  account  of  the  visit  you 
made  to  the  unfortunate  General  Hamilton,  and  of  administering 

*  In  an  English  edition  of  the  Bible,  in  1583,  the  first  woman  is  called  Hevah.      ; 

EDITOR  OF  THE  PROSPECT. 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  321 

to  him  a  ceremony  of  your  church,  which  you  call  the  Holy  Com- 
munion. 

I  regret  the  fate  of  General  Hamilton,  and  I  so  far  hope  with 
you  that  it  will  be  a  warning  to  thoughtless  man  not  to  sport 
away  the  life  that  God  has  given  him  ;  but  with  respect  to  other 
parts  of  your  letter  I  think  it  very  reprehensible,  and  betrays 
great  ignorance  of  what  true  religion  is.  But  you  are  a  priest, 
you  get  your  living  by  it,  and  it  is  not  your  worldly  interest  to 
undeceive  yourself. 

After  giving  an  account  of  your  administering  to  the  deceased 
what  you  call  the  Holy  Communion,  you  add,  "  By  reflecting  on 
this  melancholy  event,  let  the  humble  believer  be  encouraged 
ever  to  hold  fast  that  precious  faith  which  is  the  only  source  of 
true  consolation  in  the  last  extremity  of  nature.  Let  the  infidel 
be  persuaded  to  abandon  his  opposition  to  the  Gospel/' 

To  show  you,  sir,  that  your  promise  of  consolation  from  scrip- 
ture has  no  foundation  to  stand  upon,  I  will  cite  to  you  one  of 
the  greatest  falsehoods  upon  record,  and  which  was  given,  as  the 
record  says,  for  the  purpose,  and  as  a  promise  of  consolation. 

In  the  epistle  called  "  the  First  Epistle  of  Paul  to  the  Thes- 
salonians,"  (chap.  4)  the  writer  consoles  the  Thessalonians  as  to 
the  case  of  their  friends  who  were  already  dead.  He  does  this 
by  informing  them,  and  he  does  it  he  says,  by  the  word  of  the 
Lord,  (a  most  notorious  falsehood)  that  the  general  resurrection 
of  the  dead,  and  the  ascension  of  the  living,  will  be  in  his  and 
their  days  ;  that  their  friends  wjll  then  come  to  life  again  ;  that 
the  dead  in  Christ  will  rise  first. — "  Then  WE,  (says  he,  v.  17) 
which  are  alive,  and  remain,  shall  be  caught  up  together  with 
THEM  in  the  clouds,  to  meet  the  Lord  in  the  air,  and  so  shall  we 
ever  be  with  the  Lord — wherefore  comfort  one  another  with  these 
words." 

Delusion  and  falsehood  cannot  be  carried  higher  than  they  are 
in  this  passage.  You,  sir,  are  but  a  novice  in  the  art.  The 
words  admit  of  no  equivocation.  The  whole  passage  is  in  the 
first  person  and  the  present  tense,  "  We  which  are  alive."  Had 
the  writer  meant  a  future  time,  and  a  distant  generation,  it  must 
have  been  in  the  third  person  and  the  future  tense,  a  They  who* 
shall  then  be  alive."  I  am  thus  particular  for  the  purpose  of 
nailing  you  down  to  the  text,  that  you  may  not  ramble  from  it, 
nor  put  other  constructions  upon  the  words  than  they  will  bear, 
which  priests  are  very  apt  to  do. 

Now,  sir,  it  is  impossible  for  serious  man,  to  whom  God  has 
given  the  divine  gift  of  reason,  and  who  employs  that  reason  to 
reverence  and  adore  the  God  that  gave  it,  it  is,  I  say,  impossible 
for  such  a  man  to  put  confidence  in  a  book  that  abounds  with 
fable  and  falsehood,,  as  the  New  Testament  does.  This  passage 
is  but  a  sample  of  what  I  could  give  you. 


322  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

You  call  on  those  whom  you  style  "  infidels"  (and  they  in  re- 
turn might  call  you  an  idolator,  a  worshipper  of  false  gods,  a 
preacher  of  false  doctrine)  "  to  abandon  their  opposition  to  the 
Gospel."  Prove,  sir,  the  Gospel  to  be  true,  and  the  opposition 
will  cease  of  itself ;  but  until  you  do  this,  (which  we  know  you 
cannot  do)  you  have  no  right  to  expect  they  will  notice  your  call. 
If  by  infidels  you  mean  Deists,  (and  you  must  be  exceedingly  ig- 
norant of  the  origin  of  the  word  Deist,  and  know  but  little  of 
Dens,  to  put  that  construction  upon  it,)  you  will  find  yourself 
over-matched  if  you  begin  to  engage  in  a  controversy  with  them. 
Priests  may  dispute  with  priests,  and  sectaries  with  sectaries, 
about  the  meaning  of  what  they  agree  to  call  scripture,  and  end 
as  they  began  ;  but  when  you  engage  with  a  Deist  you  must 
keep  to  fact.  Now,  sir,  you  cannot  prove  a  single  article  of 
your  religion  to  be  true,  and  we  tell  you  so  publicly.  Do  it,  if 
you  can.  The  Deistical  article,  the  belief  of  a  God,  with  which 
your  creed  begins,  has  been  borrowed  by  your  church  from  the 
ancient  Deists,  and  even  this  article  you  dishonour  by  putting  a 
dream-begotten  phantom,*  which  you  call  his  son,  over  his  head, 
and  treating  God  as  if  he  was  superannuated.  Deism  is  the  only 
profession  of  religion  that  admits  of  worshipping  and  reverencing 
God  in  purity,  and  the  only  one  on  which  the  thoughtful  mind 
can  repose  with  undisturbed  tranquillity.  God  is  almost  forgotten 
in  the  Christian  religion.  Every  thing,  even  the  creation,  is  as- 
cribed to  the  son  of  Mary. 

In  religion,  as  in  every  thing  else,  perfection  consists  in  sim- 
plicity. The  Christian  religion  of  Gods  within  Gods,  like  wheels 
within  wheels,  is  like  a  complicated  machine,  that  never  goes 
right,  and  every  projector  in  the  art  of  Christianity  is  trying  to 
mend  it.  It  is  its  defects  that  have  caused  such  a  number  and 
variety  of  .tinkers  to  be  hammering  at  it,  and  still  it  goes  wrong. 
In  the  visible  world  no  time-keeper  can  go  equally  true  with  the 
sun  ;  and  in  like  manner,  no  complicated  religion  can  be  equally 
true  with  the  pure  and  unmixed  religion  of  Deism. 

Had  you  not  offensively  glanced  at  a  description  of  men  whom 
you  call  by  a  false  name,  you  would  not  have  been  troubled  nor 
honoured  with  this  address  ;  neither  has  the  writer  of  it  any  de- 
sire or  intention  to  enter  into  controversy  with  you.  He  thinks 
the  temporal  establishment  of  your  church  politically  unjust  and 
offensively  unfair  ;  but  with  respect  to  religion  itself,  distinct  from 
temporal  establishments,  he  is  happy  in  the  enjoyment  of  his 
own,  and  he  leaves  you  to  make  the  best  you  can  of  yours. 

A  MEMBER  OF  THE  DEISTICAL  CHURCH. 

*  The  first  chapter  of  Matthew,  relates  that  Joseph,  the  betrothed  husband  of  Mary, 
dreamed  that  an  angel  told  him  that  his  intended  bride  was  with  child  by  the  Holy 
Ghost.  It  is  not  every  husband,  whether  carpenter  or  priest,  that  can  be  so  easily 
satisfied,  for  lo !  it  was  a  dream.  Whether  Mary  was  in  a  dream  when  this  was  done, 
we  are  not  told.  It  is,  however,  a  comical  story.  There  is  no  woman  livkig  can 
understand  it. 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  323 

TO  JOHN  MASON, 

One  of  the  Ministers  of  the  Scotch  Presbyterian  Church,  of  New- 
York,  with  Remarks  on  his  account  of  the  visit  he  made  to  the  late 
General  Hamilton. 

tc  Come  now,  let  us  REASON  together,  saith  the  Lord."  This  is 
one  of  the  passages  you  quoted  from  your  bible,  in  your  conver- 
sation with  General  Hamilton,  as  given  in  your  letter,  signed 
with  your  name,  and  published  in  the  Commercial  Advertiser, 
and  other  New- York  papers,  arid  I  re-quote  the  passage  to  show 
that  your  Text  and  your  Religion  contradict  each  other. 

It  is  impossible  to  reason  upon  things  not  comprehensible  by 
reason  ;  and  therefore,  if  you  keep  to  your  text,  which  priests 
seldom  do,  (for  they  are  generally  either  above  it,  or  below  it,  or 
forget  it,)  you  must  admit  a  religion  to  which  reason  can  apply, 
and  this,  certainly,  is  not  the  Christian  religion. 

There  is  not  an  article  in  the  Christian'religion  that  is  cogniz- 
able by  reason.  The  Deistical  article  of  your  religion,  the  be- 
lief of  a  God,  is  no  more  a  Christian  article  than  it  is  a  Mahom- 
etan article.  It  is  an  universal  article,  common  to  all  religions, 
and  which  is  held  in  greater  purity  by  Turks  than  by  Christians  ; 
but  the  Deistical  church  is  the  only  one  which  holds  it  in  real 
purity  ;  because  that  church  acknowledges  no  co-partnership 
with  God.  It  believes  in  him  solely,  and  knows  nothing  of  Sons, 
married  Virgins,  nor  Ghosts.  It  holds  all  these  things  to  be  the 
fables  of  priest-craft. 

Why  then  do  you  talk  of  reason,  or  refer  to  it,  since  your  re- 
ligion has  nothing  to  do  with  reason,  nor  reason  with  that.  You 
tell  people,  as  you  told  Hamilton,  that  they  must  have  faith  ! 
Faith  in  what  ?  You  ought  to  know  that  before  the  mind  can 
have  faith  in  any  thing,  it  must  either  know  if  as  a  fact,  or  see 
cause  to  believe  it  on  the  probability  of  that  kind  of  evidence  that 
is  cognizable  by  reason  :  but  your  religion  is  not  within  either 
of  these  cases  ;  for,  in  the  first  place,  you  cannot  prove  it  to  be 
fact  ;  and  in  the  second  place,  you  cannot  support  it  by  reason, 
not  only  because  it  is  not  cognizable  by  reason,  but  because  it  is 
contrary  to  reason.  What  reason  can  there  be  in  supposing,  or 
believing,  that  God  put  himself  to  death,  to  satisfy  himself,  and  be 
revenged  on  the  Demi  on  account  of  Adam  ;  for  tell  the  story  which 
way  you  will  it  comes  to  this  at  last. 

As  you  can  make  no  appeal  to  reason  in  support  of  an  unrea- 
sonable religion,  you  then  (and  others  of  your  profession)  bring 
yourselves  off  by  telling  people,  they  must  not  believe  in  reason, 
but  in  revelation.  This  is  the  artifice  of  habit  without  reflection. 
It  is  putting  words  in  the  place  of  things  ;  for  do  you  not  see,  that 
when  you  tell  people  to  believe  in  revelation,  you  must  first  prove 


324  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECE*. 

that  what  you  call  revelation,  is  revelation  ;  and  as  you  cannot 
do  this,  you  put  the  word  which  is  easily  spoken,  in  the  place  of 
the  tiling  you  cannot  prove.  You  have  no  more  evidence  that 
your  Gospel  is  revelation,  than  the  Turks  have  that  their  Koran 
is  revelation,  and  the  only  difference  between  them  and  you  is, 
that  they  preach  their  delusion  and  you  preach  yours. 

In  your  conversation  with  General  Hamilton,  you  say  to  him, 
"  The  simple  truths  of  the  Gospel,  which  require  no  abstruse  in- 
vestigation, but  faith  in  the  veracity  of  God,  who  cannot  lie,  are 
best  suited  to  your  present  condition." 

If  those  matters  you  call  "  simple  truths,"  are  what  you  call 
them,  and  require  no  abstruse  investigation,  they  would  be  so  ob- 
vious that  reason  would  easily  comprehend  them  ;  yet  the  doc- 
trine you  preach  at  other  times  is,  that  the  mysteries  of  the  Gospel 
are  beyond  the  reach  of  reason.  If  your  first  position  be  true, 
that  they  are  simple  truths,  priests  are  unnecessary,  for  we  do  not 
want  preachers  to  tell  us  the  sun  shines  ;  and  if  your  second  be 
true,  the  case,  as  to  effect,  is  the  same,  for  it  is  waste  of  money 
to  pay  a  man  to  explain  unexplainable  things,  and  loss  of  time  to 
listen  to  him.  That  God  cannot  lie,  is  no  advantage  to  your  argu- 
ment, because  it  is  no  proof  that  priests  cannot,  or  that  the  bible  does 
not.  Did  not  Paul  lie  when  he  told  the  Thessalonians  that  the 
general  resurrection  of  the  dead  would  be  in  his  life-time,  and 
ihat  he  should  go  up  alive  along  with  them  into  the  clouds  to  meet 
the  Lord  in  the  air.  1  Thes.  chap.  4,  v.  17. 

You  spoke  of  what  you  call,  "  the  precious  blood-  of  Christ." 
This  savage  style  of  language  belongs  to  the  priests  of  the  Chris- 
tian religion.  The  professors  of  this  religion  say  they  are  shock- 
ed at  the  accounts  of  human  sacrifices  of  which  they  read  in  the 
histories  of  some  countries.  Do  they  not  see  that  their  own  reli- 
gion is  founded  on  a  human  sacrifice,  the  blood  of  man,  of  which 
their  priests  talk  like  so  many  butchers.  It  is  no  wonder  the 
Christian  religion  has  been  so  bloody  in  its  effects,  for  it  began 
in  blood,  and  many  thousands  of  human  sacrifices  have  since  been 
offered  on  the  altar  of  the  Christian  religion. 

It  is  necessary  to  the  character  of  a  religion,  as  being  true,  and 
immutable  as  God  himself  is,  that  the  evidence  of  it  be  equally 
the  same  through  all  periods  of  time  and  circumstance.  This  is 
not  the  case  with  the  Christian  religion,  nor  with  that  of  the  Jews 
that  proceeded  it,  (for  there  was  a  time,  and  that  within  the  know- 
ledge of  history,  when  these  religions  did  not  exist)  nor  is  it  the 
case  with  any  religion  we  know  of  but  the  religion  of  Deism. 
In  this  the  evidences  are  eternal  and  universal. — "  Tlie  heavens  de- 
clare the  glory  of  God,  and  the  firmament  showeth  his  handy  work, — 
Day  unto  fay  uttereth  speech,  and  night  unto  night  showeth  know- 
ledge."* But  all  other  religions  are  made  to  arise  from  some  lo- 

*This  Pslam  (19)  which  is  a  Deistical  Pslam,  is  so  much  m  the  manner  of  some 
oarts  of  the  book  of  Job,  (which  is  not  a  book  of  the  Jews,  and  does  not  belong  to  the 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  ^          325 

cal  circumstance,  and  am  introduced  by  some  temporary  trifle 
which  its  partizans  call  a  miracle,  b.ut  of  which  there  is  no  proof 
but  the  story  of  it. 

The  Jewish  religion,  according  to  the  history  of  it,  began  in  a 
wilderness ,  and  the  Christian  religion  in  a  stable.  The  Jewish 
books  tell  us  of  wonders  exhibited  upon  Mount  Sinai.  It  hap- 
pened that  nobody  lived  there  to  contradict  the  account.  The 
Christian  books  tells  us  of  a  star  that  hung  over  the  stable  at  the 
birth  of  Jesus.  There  is  no  star  there  now,  nor  any  person  liv- 
ing that  saw  it.  But  all  the  stars  in  the  heavens  bear  eternal  ev- 
idence to  the  truth  of  Deism.  It  did  not  begin  in  a  stable,  nor  in 
a  wilderness.  It  began  every  where.  The  theatre  of  the  universe 
is  the  place  of  its  birth. 

As  adoration  paid  to  any  being  but  GOD  himself  is  idolatry, 
the  Christian  religion  by  paying  adoration  to  a  man,  born  of  a  w*- 
man,  called  Mary,  belong?!  to  the  idolatrous  class  of  religions, 
consequently  the  consolation  drawn  from  it  is  delusion.  Between 
you  and  your  rival  in  communion  ceremonies,  Dr.  Moore  of  the 
Episcopal  church,  you  have,  in  order  to  make  yourselves  appear 
of  some  importance,  reduced  General  Hamilton's  character  to  that 
of  a  feeble  minded  man,  who,  in  going  out  of  the  world  wanted  a 
passport  from  a  priest.  Which  of  you  was  first  or  last  applied  to 
for  this  purpo'se  is  a  matter  of  no  consequence. 

The  man,  sir,  who  puts  his  trust  and  confidence  in  God,  that 
leads  a  just  and  moral  life,  and  endeavours  to  do  good,  does  not 
trouble  himself  about  priests  when  his  hour  of  departure  comes, 
nor  permit  priests  to  trouble  themselves  about  him.  They  are,  in 
general,  mischievous  beings,  where  character  is  concerned  ;  a 
consultation  of  priests  is  worse  than  a  consultation  of  physicians. 
A  Member  of  the  Deistical  Congregation. 


ON  DEISM  AND  THE  WRITINGS  OF  THOMAS  PAINE 

THE  following  reflections,  written  last  winter,  were  occasioned 
by  certain  expressions  in  some  of  the  public  papers  against  Deism, 
and  the  Writings  of  Thomas  Paine  on  that  subject. 

"  Great  is  Diana  of  the  Ephesians,"  was  the  cry  of  the  people 
of  Ephesus  ;*  and  the  cry  of  "  our  holy  religion,"  has  been  the  cry 

bible),  that  it  has  the  appearance  of  having  been  translated  into  Hebrew  from  the  same 
language  in  which  the  book  of  Job  was  originally  written,  and  brought  by  the  Jews 
from  Chaldea  or  Persia,  when  they  returned  from  captivity.  The  contemplation  of 
the  heavens  made  a  great  part  of  their  religious  devotion  of  the  Chaldeans  and  Per- 
sians, and  their  religious  festivals  were  regulated  by  the  progress  of  the  sun  through 
the  twelve  signs  of  the  Zodiac.  But  the  Jews  knew  nothing  about  the  Heavens,  or 
they  would  not  have  told  the  foolish  story  of  the  gun's  standing  still  upon  a  hill,  and  the 
moon  in  a  valley.  What  could  they  want  the  moon  for  in  the  day  timel 
*  Acts,  chap.  xix.  ^er.  28. 


326  MISCELLANEOUS  PIECES. 

of  superstition  in  some  instances,  and  of  hypocrisy  in  others,  from 
that  day  to  this. 

The  Brahmin,  the  follower  of  Zoroaster,  the  Jew,  the  Mahome- 
tan, the  church  of  Rome,  the  Greek  church,  the  protestant  church, 
split  into  several  hundred  contradictory  sectaries,  preaching  in 
some  instances,  damnation  against  each  other,  all  cry  out,  "  our 
holy  religion."  The  Calvinist,  who  damns  children  of  a  span  long 
to  hell  to  burn  for  ever  for  the  glory  of  God,  (and  this  is  called 
Christianity)  and  the  universalist,  who  preaches  that  all  shall  be 
saved  and  none  shall  be  damned,  (and  this  also  is  called  Christi- 
anity) boasts  alike  of  their  holy  religion  and  their  Christian  faith. 
Something  more,  therefore,  is  necessary  than  mere  cry  and  whole- 
sale assertion,  and  that  something  is  TRUTH  ;  and  as  inquiry 
is  the  road  to  truth,  he  that  is  opposed  to  inquiry  is  not  a  friend 
to  truth. 

The  God  of  Truth  is  not  the  God  of  fable  ;  when,  therefore, 
any  book  is  introduced  into  the  world  as  the  word  of  God,  and 
made  a  ground-work  for  religion,  it  ought  to  be  scrutinized  more 
than  other  books  to  see  if  it  bear  evidence  of  being  what  it  is 
called.  Our  reverence  to  God  demands  that  we  do  this,  lest  we 
ascribe  to  God  what  is  not  his,  and  our  duty  to  ourselves  de- 
mands it  lest  we  take  fable  for  fact,  and  rest  our  hope  of  salvation 
on  a  false  foundation.  It  is  not  our  calling  a  book  holy  that 
makes  it  so,  any  more  than  our  calling  a  religion  holy  that  en- 
titles it  to  the  name.  Inquiry,  therefore,  is  necessary  in  order 
to  arrive  at  truth.  But  inquiry  must  have  some  principle  to 
proceed  on,  some  standard  to  judge  by,  superior  to  human 
authority. 

When  we  survey  the  works  of  creation,  the  revolutions  of  the 
planetary  system,  and  the  whole  ecomomy  of  what  is  called  na- 
ture, which  is.no  other  than  the  laws  the  Creator  has  prescrib- 
ed to  matter,  we  see  unerring  order  and  universal  harmony 
reigning  throughout  the  whole.  No  one  part  contradicts  another. 
The  sun  does  not  run  against  the  moon,  nor  the  moon  against 
the  sun,  nor  the  planets  against  each  other.  Every  thing 
keeps  its  appointed  time  and  place.  This  harmony  in  the  works 
of  God  is  so  obvious,  that  the  farmer  of  the  field,  though  he 
cannot  calculate  eclipses,  is  as  sensible  of  it  as  the  philosophi- 
cal astronomer.  He  sees  the  God  of  order  in  every  part  of 
the  visible  universe. 

Here,  then,  is  the  standard  to  which  every  thing  must  be 
brought  that  pretends  to  be  th«  work  or  word  of  God,  and  by  this 
standard  it  must  be  judged,  independently  of  any  thing  and  every 
thing  that  man  can  say  or  do.  His  opinion  is  like  a  feather  in  the 
scale  compared  with  the  standard  that  God  himself  has  set  up. 

It  is,  therefore,  by  this  standard,  that  the  Bible,  and  all  other 
books  pretending  to  be  the  word  of  God,  (and  there  are  many  of 
them  in  the  world)  must  be  judged,  and  not  by  the  opinions  of 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  327 

men,  or  the  decrees  of  ecclesiastical  councils.  These  have  been 
so  contradictory,  that  they  have  often  rejected  in  one  council 
what  they  had  voted  to  be  the  word  of  God  in  another  ;  and  ad- 
mitted what  had  been  before  rejected.  In  this  state  of  uncertain- 
ty in  which  we  are,  and  which  is  rendered  still  more  uncertain  by 
the  numerous  contradictory  sectaries  that  have  sprung  up  since 
the  time  of  Luther  and  Calvin,  what  is  man  to  do  ?  The  an- 
swer is  easy.  Begin  at  the  root — begin  with  the  Bible  itself. 
Examine  it  with  the  utmost  strictness.  It  is  our  duty  so  to  do. 
Compare  the  parts  with  each  other,  and  the  whole  with  the  har- 
monious, magnificent  order  that  reigns  throughout  the  visible 
universe,  and  the  result  will  be,  that  if  the  same  almighty  wisdom 
that  created  the  universe,  dictated  also  the  Bible,  the  Bible  will 
be  as  harmonious  and  as  magnificent  in  all  its  parts,  and  in  the 
whole,  as  the  universe  is.  T3ut  if,  instead  of  this,  the  parts  are 
found  to  be  discordant,  contradicting  in  one  place  what  is  said  in 
another,  (as  in  2  Sam.  chap.  xxiv.  ver.  1,  and  1  Chron.  chap. 
xxi.  ver.  1.  where  the  same  action  is  ascribed  to  God  in  one 
book  and  to  Satan  in  the  other,)  abounding  also  in  idle  and  ob- 
scene stories,  and  representing  the  Almighty  as  a  passionate, 
whimsical  Being,  continually  changing  his  mind,  making  and  un- 
making his  own  works  as  if  he  did  not  know  what  he  was  about, 
we  may  take  it  for  certainty  that  the  Creator  of  the  universe  is 
not  the  author  of  such  a  book,  that  it  is  not  the  word  of  God,  and 
that  to  call  it  so  is  to  dishonour  his  name.  The  Quakers,  who 
are  a  people  more  moral  and  regular  in  their  conduct  than  the 
people  of  other  sectaries,  and  generally  allowed  so  to  be,  do  not 
hold  the  Bible  to  be  the  word  of  God.  They  call  it  a  history  of 
the  times,  and  a  bad  history  it  is,  and  also  a  history  of  bad  men 
and  of  bad  actions,  and  abounding  with  bad  examples. 

For  several  centuries  past  the  dispute  has  been  about  doc- 
trines. It  is  now  about  fact.  Is  the  Bible  the  word  of  God,  or 
is  it  not  ?  for  until  this  point  is  established,  no  doctrine  drawn 
from  the  Bible  can  afford  real  consolation  to  man,  and  he  ought 
to  be  careful  he  does  not  mistake  delusion  for  truth.  This  is  a 
case  that  concerns  all  men  alike. 

There  has  always  existed  in  Europe,  and  also  in  America,  since 
its  establishments,  a  numerous  description  of  men,  (I  do  not  here 
mean  the  Quakers)  who  did  not,  and  do  not  believe  the  Bible  to 
be  the  word  of  God.  These  men  never  formed  themselves  into 
an  established  society,  but  are  to  be  found  in  all  the  sectaries 
that  exist,  and  are  more  numerous  than  any,  perhaps  equal  to  all, 
and  are  daily  increasing.  From  Deus,  the  Latin  word  for  God, 
they  have  been  denominated  Deists,  that  is,  believers  in  God. 
It  is  the  most  honourable  appellation  that  can  be  given  to  man, 
because  it  is  derived  immediately  from  the  Deity.  It  is  not  an 
artificial  name  like  episcopalian,  presbyterian,  &c.  but  is  a  name  of 
sacred  signification,  and  to  revile  it,  is  to  revile  the  name  of  God. 


328  MISCELLANEOUS  PIECES. 

Since  then  there  is  so  mucn  doubt  and  uncertainty  aoout  the 
Bible,  some  asserting,  and  others  denying  it  to  be  the  word  of 
God,  it  is  best  that  the  whole  matter  come  out.  It  is  necessary, 
for  the  information  of  the  world,  that  it  should.  A  better  time 
cannot  offer  than  whilst  the  government,  patronizing  no  one  sect 
or  opinion  in  preference  to  another,  protects  equally  the  rights 
of  all ;  and  certainly  every  man  must  spurn  the  idea  of  an  ec- 
clesiastical tyranny,  engrossing  the  rights  of  the  press,  and  hold- 
ing it  free  only  for  itself. 

Whilst  the  terrors  of  the  Church,  and  the  tyranny  of  the 
State,  hung  like  a  pointed  sword  over  Europe,  men  were  com- 
manded to  believe  what  the  church  told  them,  or  go  to  the  stake. 
All  inquiries  into  the  authenticity  of  the  Bible  were  shut  out  by 
the  inquisition.  We  ought,  therefore,  to  suspect  that  a  great 
mass  of  information  respecting  the  Bible,  and  the  introduction  of 
it  into  the  world,  has  been  suppressed  by  the  united  tyranny  of 
Church  and  State,  for  the  purpose  of  keeping  people  in  ignorance, 
and  which  ought  to  be  known. 

The  Bible  has  been  received  by  the  protestants  on  the  author- 
ity of  the  Church  of  Rome,  and  on  no  other  authority.  It  is  she 
that  has  said  it  is  the  word  of  God.  We  do  not  admit  the  au- 
thority of  that  church  with  respect  to  its  pretended  infaUibUihj, 
its  manufactured  miracles,  its  setting  itself  up  to  forgive  sins,  its 
amphibious  doctrine  of  transubstantiation,  &.c.  ;  and  we  ought 
to  be  watchful  with  respect  to  any  book  introduced  by  her,  or 
her  ecclesiastical  councils,  and  called  by  her  the  Word  of  God ; 
and  the  more  so,  because  it  was  by  propagating  that  belief  and 
supporting  it  by  fire  and  faggot,  that  she  kept  up  her  temporal 
power.  That  the  belief  of  the  Bible  does  no  good  in  the  world, 
may  be  seen  by  the  irregular  lives  of  those,  as  weJl  priests  as 
laymen,  who  profess  to  believe  it  to  be  the  word  of  God,  and  the 
moral  lives  of  the  Quakers  who  do  not.  It  abounds  with  too 
many  ill  examples  to  be  made  a  rule  for  moral  life,  and  were  a 
man  to  copy  after  the  lives  of  some  of  its  most  celebrated  char- 
acters, he  would  come  to  the  gallows. 

Thomas  Paine  has  written  to  show  that  the  Bible  is  not  the 
word  of  God,  that  the  books  it  contains  were  not  written  by  the 
persons  to  whom  they  are  ascribed,  that  it  is  an  anonymous 
book,  and  that  we  have  no  authority  for  calling  it  the  word  of 
God,  or  for  saying  it  was  written  by  inspired  penmen,  since  we 
do  not  know  who  the  writers  were.  This  is  the  opinion,  not  only 
of  Thomas  Paine,  but  of  thousands  and  tens  of  thousands  of 
the  most  respectable  characters  in  the  United  States  and  in 
Europe.  These  men  have  the  same  right  to  their  opinions  as  oth- 
ers have  to  contrary  opinions,  and  the  same  right  to  publish  them. 
Ecclesiastical  tyranny  is  not  admissible  in  the  United  States. 

With  respect  to  morality,  the  writings  of  Thomas  Paine  are 
remarkable  for  purity  and  benevolence  ;  and  though  he  often 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  329 

enlivens  them  with  touches  of  wit  and  humour,  he  never  loses 
sight  of  the  real  solemnity  of  his  subject.  No  man's  morals, 
either  with  respect  to  his  Maker,  himself,  or  his  neighbour,  can 
suffer  by  the  writings  of  Thomas  Paine. 

It  is  now  too  late  to  abuse  Deism,  especially  in  a  country 
where  the  press  is  free,  or  where  free  presses  can  be  established. 
It  is  a  religion  that  has  God  for  its  patron  and  derives  its  name 
from  him.  The  thoughtful  mind  of  man,  wearied  with  the 
endless  contentions  of  sectaries  against  sectaries,  doctrines 
against  doctrines,  and  priests  against  priests,  finds  its  repose  at 
last  in  the  contemplative  belief  and  worship  of  one  God  and  the 
practice  of  morality,  for  as  Pope  wisely  says, 

"  He  can't  be  wrong,  whose  life  is  in  the  right." 


OF  THE  BOOKS  OF  THE  NEW  TESTAMENT. 

Addressed  to  the  believers  in  the  book  called  the  Scriptures. 


THE  New  Testament  contains  twenty-seven  books,  of  which 
four  are  called  Gospels  ;  one  called  the  Acts  of  the  Apostles  ; 
fourteen  called  Epistles  of  Paul  ;  one  of  James  ;  two  of  Peter; 
three  of  John  ;  one  of  Jude  ;  and  one  called  the  Revelation. 

None 'of  those  books  have  the  appearance  of  being  written  by 
the  persons  whose  names  they  bear,  neither  do  we  know  who 
the  authors  were.  They  come  to  us  on  no  other  authority  than 
the  church  of  Rome,  which  the  Protestant  Priests,  especially 
those  of  New  England,  called  the  IWtore  of  Babylon.  This 
church  appointed  sundry  councils  to  be  held,  to  compose  creeds 
for  the  people,  and  to  regulate  church  affairs.  Two  of  the 
principal  of  these  Councils  were  that  of  Nice,  and  of  Laodocia, 
(names  of  the  places  where  the  councils  were  held)  about  three 
hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the  time  that  Jesus  is  said  to  have 
lived.  Before  this  time  there  was  no  such  book  as  the  New 
Testament.  But  the  church  could  not  well  go  on  without  hav- 
ing something  to  show,  as  the  Persians  showed  the  Zendavista, 
revealed,  they  say,  by  God  to  Zoroaster  ;  the  Bramins  of  India, 
the  Shaster,  revealed,  they  say,  by  God  to  Bruma,  and  given  to 
him  out  of  a  dusky  cloud  ;  the  Jews,  the  books  they  call  the 
Law  of  Moses,  given  they  say  also  out  of  a  cloud  on  Mount 
Sinai  ;  the  church  set  about  forming  a  code  for  itself  out  of 
such  materials  as  it  could  find  or  pick  up.  But  where  they  got 
those  materials,  in  what  language  they  were  written,  or  whose 


330  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

hand-writing  they  were,  or  whether  they  were  originals  or  copies, 
or  on  what  authority  they  stood,  we  know  nothing  of,  nor  does 
the  New  Testament  tell  us.  The  church  was  resolved  to  have 
a  JVew  Testament,  and  as  after  the  lapse  of  more  than  three 
hundred  years,  no  hand-writing  could  be  proved  or  disproved, 
the  church,  who  like  former  impostors,  had  then  gotten  posses- 
sion of  the  state,  had  every  thing  its  own  way.  It  invented 
croeds,  such  as  that  called  the  Apostle's  Creed,  die  Nicean 
Creed,  the  Athanasian  Creed,  and  out  of  the  loads  of  rubbish 
that  were  presented,  it  voted  four  to  be  Gospels,  and  others  to  be 
Epistles,  as  we  now  find  them  arranged. 

Of  those  called  Gospels  above  forty  were  presented,  each  pre- 
tending to  be  genuine.  Four  only  were  voted  in,  and  entitled, 
The  Gospel  according  to  St.  Matthew — the  Gospel  according  to 
St.  Mark — the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Luke — the  Gospel  accord- 
ing to  St.  John. 

This  word  according  shows  that  those  books  have  not  been 
^written  by  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and  John,  but  according  to 
some  accounts  or  traditions,  picked  up  concerning  them.  The 
word  according  means  agreeing  with,  and  necessarily  includes  the 
idea  of  two  things,  or  two  persons.  We  cannot  say,  The  Gos- 
pel written  by  Matthew  according  to  Matthew  ;  but  we  might  say, 
the  Gospel  of  some  other  person,  according  to  what  was  report- 
ed to  have  been  the  opinion  of  Matthew.  Now  we  do  not  know 
who  those  other  persons  were,  nor  whether  what  they  wrote  ac- 
corded with  any  thing  that  Matthew,  Mark,  Luke  and  John  might 
have  said.  There  is  too  little  evidence,  and  too  much  contriv- 
ance, about  those  books,  to, merit  credit. 

The  next  book  after  those  called  Gospels,  is  that  called  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles.  This  book  is  anonymous  ;  neither  do  the 
Councils  that  compiled  or  contrived  the  New  Tpstament  tell  us 
how  they  came  by  it.  The  church,  to  supply  this  defect,  say  it 
was  written  by  Luke,  which  shows  that  the  church  and  its  priests 
have  not  compared  that  called  the  Gospel  according  to  St.  Luke, 
and  the  Acts  together,  for  the  two  contradict  each  other.  The 
book  of  Luke,  chap.  24,  makes  Jesus  ascend  into  heaven  the 
very  same  day  that  it  makes  him  rise  from  the  grave.  The  book 
of  Acts,  chap.  i.  v.  3,  fays,  that  he  remained  on  the  earth  forty 
days  after  his  crucifixion.  There  is  no  believing  what  either  of 
them  says. 

The  next  to  the  book  of  Acts  is  that  entitled,  "  The  Epistle 
of  Paul  the  Apostle*  to  the  Romans."  This  is  not  an  epistle, 
or  letter,  written  by  Paul  or  signed  by  him.  It  is  an  epistle,  or 

*  According  to  the  criterion  of  the  church,  Paul  was  not  an  apostle  :  that  appella- 
tion being  given  only  to  those  called  the  twelve.  Two  sailors  belonging  to  a  man  of 
war,  got  into  a  dispute  upon  this  point,  whether  Paul  was  an  apostle  or  not,  and  they 
agreed  to  refer  it  to  the  Boatswain,  who  decided  very  canonicalty  that  Paul  was  an. 
acting  apostle  but  not  rated 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  331 

letter,  written  by  a  person  who  signs  himself  TERTIUS,  and  sent, 
as  it  is  said  at  the  end,  by  a  servant  woman  called  Phebe.  The 
last  chapter,  v.  22,  says,  "  I  Tertius,  who  wrote  this  Epistle,  sa- 
lute you."  Who  Tertius  or  Phebe  were,  we  know  nothing  of. 
The  epistle  is  not  dated.  The  whole  of  it  is  written  in  the  first 
person,  and  that  person  is  Tertius,  not  Paul.  But  it  suited  the 
churcli  to  ascribe  it  to  Paul.  There  is  nothing  in  it  that  is  in- 
teresting, except  it  be  to  contending  and  wrangling  sectaries. — 
The  stupid  metaphor  of  the  potter  and  the  clay  is  in  the  9th 
chapter. 

The  next  book  is  entitled,  "The  First  Epistle  of  Paul  the 
Apostle,  to  the  Corinthians."  This,  like  the  former,  is  not  an 
epistle  written  by  Paul,  nor  signed  by  him.  The  conclusion  of 
the  epistle  says,  "  The  first  epistle  to  the  Corinthians  was  writ- 
ten from  Philippi,  by  Stephenas  and  Fortunatus  and  Achiacus  and 
Timotheus."  The  second  epistle  entitled,  "  The  Second  Epis- 
tle of  Paul  the  Apostle,  to  the  Corinthians,"  is  in  the  same  case 
with  the  first.  The  conclusion  of  it  says,  "  It  was  written  from 
Philippi,  a  city  of  Macedonia,  by  Titus  and  Lucas." 

A  question  may  arise  upon  these  cases,  which  is,  are  these 
persons  the  writers  of  the  epistles  originally,  or  are  they  the 
writers  and  attestors  of  copies  sent  to  the  councils  who  compiled 
the  code  or  canon  of  the  New  Testament  ?  If  the  epistles  had 
been  dated,  this  question  could  be  decided  ;  but  in  either  of  the 
cases  the  evidences  of  Paul's  hand  writing  and  of  their  being 
written  by  him  is  wanting,  and  therefore  there  is  no  authority  for 
calling  them  epistles  of  Paul.  We  know  not  whose  epistles  they 
were,  nor  whether  they  are  genuine  or  forged. 

The  next  is  entitled,  "  The  Epistle  of  Paul  the  Apostle,  to 
the  Galatians."  It  contains  six  short  chapters.  But  short  as  the 
epistle  is,  it  does  not  carry  the  appearance  of  being  the  work  or 
composition  of  one  person.  The  fifth  chapter,  ver.  2,  says,  "  If 
ye  be  circumcised,  Christ  shall  avail  you  nothing."  It  does  not 
say  circumcision  shall  profit  you  nothing,  but  Christ  shall  profit 
you  nothing.  Yet  in  the  sixth  chap.  v.  15,  it  says,  "  For  in 
Christ  Jesus  neither  circumcision  availeth  any  thing,  nor  uncir- 
cumcision,  but  a  new  creature."  These  are  not  reconcileable 
passages,  nor  can  contrivance  make  them  so.  The  conclusion 
of  the  epistle  says,  it  was  written  from  Rome,  but  it  is  not  dated, 
nor  is  there  any  signature  to  it,  neither  do  the  compilers  of  the 
New  Testament  say  how  they  came  by  it.  We  are  in  the  dark 
upon  all  these  matters, 

The  next  is  entitled,  "  the  Epistle  of  Paul  the  Apostle,  to  the 
Ephesians."  Paul  is  not  the  writer.  The  conclusion  of  it  says, 
"  Written  from  Rome  unto  the  Ephesians  by  Tychicus." 

The  next  is  entitled,  <;  the  Epistle  of  Paul  the  Apostle,  to  the 
Philippians."  Paul  is  not  the  writer.  The  conclusion  of  it  says, 
,"  It  was  written  to  the  Philippians  from  Rome  by  Epaphroditus." 


332  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

It  is  not  dated.  Query,  were  those  men  who  wrote  and  signed 
those  epistles  Journeymen  Apostles,  who  undertook  to  write  in 
Paul's  name,  as  Paul  is  said  to  have  preached  in  Christ's  name? 
The  next  is  entitled,  "  the  Epistle  of  Paul  the  Apostle,  to  the 
Colossians."  Paul  is  not  the  writer.  Doctor  Luke  is  spoken 
of  in  this  Epistle  as  sending  his  compliments.  "Luke,  the  be- 
loved physician  and  Demas  greet  you."  Chap.  iv.  v.  14.  It 
does  not  say  a  word  about  his  writing  any  Gospel.  The  conclu- 
sion of  the  Epistle  says,  "  Written  from  Rome  to  the  Colossians, 
by  Tychicus  and  Onesimus." 

The  next  is  entitled  "  the  first  and  the  second  Epistles  of  Paul 
the  Apostle,  to  the  Thessalonians."  Either  the  writer  of  these 
Epistles  was  a  visionary  enthusiast,  or  a  direct  impostor,  for  he 
tells  the  Thessalonians,  and,  he  says,  he  tells  them  by  the  word 
of  the  Lord,  that  the  world  will  be  at  an  end  in  his  and  their 
time;  and  after  telling  them  that  those  who  are  already  dead 
shall  rise,  he  adds,  chapter  4,  v.  17,  "  Then  we  which  are  alive 
and  remain  shall  be  caught  up  with  them  into  the  clouds  to  meet 
the  Lord  in  the  air,  and  so  shall  we  be  ever  with  the  Lord." 
Such  detected  lies  as  these,  ought  to  fill  priests  with  confusion, 
when  they  preach  such  books  to  be  the  word  of  God.  These 
two  Epistles  are  said,  in  the  conclusion  of  them,  to  be  written 
from  Athens.  They  are  without  date  or  signatures. 

The  next  four  Epistles  are  private  letters.  Two  of  them  are 
to  Timothy,  one  to  Titus,  and  one  to  Philemon.  Who  they  were 
nobody  knows. 

The  first  to  Timothy  is  said  to  be  written  from  Laodocea.  It 
is  without  date  or  signature.  The  second  to  Timothy  is  said  to 
be  written  from  Rome,  and  is  without  date  or  signature.  The 
Epistle  to  Titus  is  said  to  be  written  from  Nicopolis  in  Macedo- 
nia. It  is  without  date  or  signature.  The  Epistle  to  Philemon 
is  said  to  be  written  from  Rome  by  Onesimus.  It  is  without 
date. 

The  last  Epistle  ascribed  to  Paul  is  entitled,  "  The  Epistle  of 
Paul  the  Apostle  to  the  Hebrews,"  and  is  said  in  the  conclusion 
to  be  written  from  Italy,  by  Timothy.  This  Timothy  (according 
to  the  conclusion  of  the  Epistle  called  the  second  Epistle  of 
Paul  to  Timothy)  was  bishop  of  the  church  of  the  Ephesians, 
and  consequently  this  is  not  an  Epistle  of  Paul. 

On  what  slender  cob-web  evidence  do  the  priests  and  profes- 
sors of  the  Christian  religion  hang  their  faith!  The  same  degree 
of  hearsay  evidence,  and  that  at  third  and  fourth  hand,  would 
not  in  a  court  of  Justice,  give  a  man  title  to  a  cottage,  and  yet 
the  priests  of  this  profession  presumptuously  promise  their  de- 
luded followers  the  kingdom  of  Heaven.  A  little  reflection 
would  teach  men  that  those  books  are  not  to  be  trusted  to; 
that  so  far  from  there  being  any  proof  they  are  the  word  of  God, 
it  is  unknown  who  the  writers  of  them  were,  or  at  what  time 


MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES.  333 

they  were  written,  within  three  hundred  years  after  the  reputed 
authors  are  said  to  have  lived. .  It  is  not  the  interest  of  priests, 
who  get  their  livirig  by  them,  to  examine  into  the  insufficiency 
of  the  evidence  upon  which  those  books  were  received  by  the 
popish  councils  who  compiled  the  New  Testament. 

The  cry  of  the  priests,  that  the  Church  is  in  danger,  is  the  cry 
of  men  who  do  not  understand  the  interest  of  their  own  craft, 
for  instead  of  exciting  alarms  and  apprehensions  for  its  safety,  as 
they  expect,  it  excites  suspicion  that  the  foundation  is  not  sound, 
and  that  it  is  necessary  to  take  down  and  build  it  on  a  surer 
foundation.  Nobody  fears  for  the  safety  of  a  mountain,  but 
a  hillock  of  sand  may  be  washed  away!  Blow  then,  O  ye 
priests,  "  the  Trumpet  in  Zion,"  for  the  Hillock  is  in  danger. 

DETECTOR— P. 


COMMUNICATION. 

THE  church  tells  us  that  the  books  of  the  Old  and  New  Testa- 
ment are  divine  revelation,  and  without  this  revelation  we  could 
not  have  true  ideas  of  God. 

The  Deist,  on  the  contrary,  say,  that  those  books  are  not  divine 
revelation,  and  that  were  it  not  for  the  light  of  reason,  and  the  re- 
ligion of  Deism,  those  books,  instead  of  teaching  us  true  ideas  of 
God,  would  teach  us  not  only  false  but  blasphemous  ideas  of  him. 

Deism  teaches  us  that  God  is  a  God  of  truth  and  justice.  Does 
the  Bible  teach  the  same  doctrine  ?  It  does  not. 

The  Bible  says,  (Jeremiah,  chap.  20,  verses  5,  7,)  that  God  is  a 
deceiver.  "  O  Lord  (says  Jeremiah)  thou  hast  deceived  me,  and 
I  was  deceived.  Thou  art  stronger  than  I,  and  hast  prevailed." 

Jeremiah  not  only  upbraids  God  with  deceiving  him,  but  in 
chap.  4,  verse  9,  he  upbraids  God  with  deceiving  the  people  of 
Jerusalem.  "Ah!  Lord  God,  (says  he,)  surely  thou  hast  greatly 
deceived  this  people  and  Jerusalem,  saying,  ye  shall  have  peace, 
whereas  the  sword  reacheth  unto  the  soul." 

In  chap.  15,  verse  8,  the  Bible  becomes  more  impudent,  and 
calls  God  in  plain  language,  a  liar.  lt  Wilt  thou,  (says  Jeremiah 
to  God,)  be  altogether  unto  me  as  a  liar  and  as  waters  that  fail." 

Ezekiel,  chap.  14,  verse  9,  makes  God  to  say — "  If  the  prophet 
be  deceived  when  he  hath  spoken  a  thing,  I  the  Lord  hath  deceived 
that  prophet."  All  this  is  downright  blasphemy. 

The  prophet  Micaiah,  as  he  is  called,  2  Chron.  chap.  18,  verse 
18,  tells  another  blasphemous  story  of  God. — "  I  saw,  says  he,  the 
Lord  sitting  on  his  throne,  and  all  the  hosts  of  heaven  standing  on 
his  right  hand  and  on  his  left.  And  the  Lord  said,  who  shall  en- 
tice Ahab,  king  of  Israel,  to  go  up  and  fall  at  Ramoth  Gilead? 
And  one  spoke  after  this  manner,  and  another  after  that  manner. 


334  MISCELLANEOUS  PIECES, 

Then  there  came  out  a  spirit  (Micaiah  doea  not  tell  us  v/here  hg 
came  from)  and  stood  ieforc  the  Lordj  (what  an  impudent  fellow 
this  spirit  was,)  and  said,  I  will  entice  him.  And  the  Lord  said 
unto  him,  wherewith?  and  he  said,  I  will  go  out  and  be  a  lying 
.spirit  in  the  mouth  of  all  his  prophets.  And  the  Lord  said  thou 
shalt  entice  him,  and  thou  shalt  also  prevail;  go  out  and  do  even  so. 
We  often  hear  of  a  gang  of  thieves  plotting  to  rob  and  murder 
a  man,  and  laying  a  plan  to  entice  him  out  that  they  may  execute 
their  design,  and  we  always  feel  shocked  at  the  wickedness  of 
such  wretches ;  but  what  must  we  think  of  a  book  that  des- 
cribes the  Almighty  acting  in  the  same  manner,  and  laying  plans 
in  heaven  to  entrap  and  ruin  mankind.  Our  ideas  of  his  justice 
and  goodness  forbid  us  to  believe  such  stories,  and,  therefore,  we 
say  that  a  lying  spirit  has  been  in  the  mouth  of  the  writers  of  the 
books  of  the  Bible  T.  P. 


TO  THE  EDITOR  OF  THE  PROSPECT. 

IN  addition  to  the  judicious  remarks  in  your  12th  number,  on 
the  absurd  story  of  Noah's  flood,  in  the  7th  chapter  of  Genesis, 
I  send  you  the  following  : 

The  2d  verse  makes  God  to  say  unto  Noah,  "  Of  every  clean 
beast  thou  shalt  take  to  thee  by  sevens,  the  male  and  his  female, 
and  of  every  beast  that  are  not  clearij  by  two,  the  male  and  his 
female." 

Now,  there  was  no  such  thing  as  beasts  clean  and  unclean  in 
the  time  of  Noah.  Neither  were  there  any  such  people  as  Jews 
or  Israelites  at  that  time,  to  whom  that  distinction  was  a  law. 
The  law,  called  the  law  of  Moses,  by  which  a  distinction  is  made, 
beasts  clean  and  unclean,  wa?  not  until  several  hundred  years 
after  the  time  that  Noah  is  said  to  have  lived.  The  story,  there- 
fore, detects  itself,  because  the  inventor  forgot  himself,  by  making 
God  make  use  of  an  expression  that  could  not  be  used  at  the 
time.  The  blunder  is  of  the  same  kind,  as  if  a  man  in  telling  a 
story  about  America,  a  hundred  years  ago,  should  quote  an  ex- 
pression from  Mr.  Jefferson's  inaugural  speech,  as  if  spoken  by 
him  at  that  time. 

My  opinion  of  this  story  is  the  same  as  what  a  man  once  said 
to  another,  who  asked  him  in  a  drawling  tone  of  voice,  "  Do  you 
believe  the  account  about  No-ah  ?"  The  other  replied  in  the 
same  tone  of  voice,  ah-no.  T.  P. 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  335 


RELIGIOUS  INTELLIGENCE.' 


THE  following  publication,  which  has  appeared  in  several  news- 
papers in  different  parts  of  the  United  States,  shows  in  the 
most  striking  manner,  the  character  and  effects  of  religious  fa- 
naticism, and  to  what  extravagant  lengths  it  will  carry  its  un- 
ruly and  destructive  operations.  We  give  it  a  place  in  the 
Prospect,  because  we  think  the  perusal  of  it  will  be  gratifying 
to  our  subscribers  ;  and,  because,  by  exposing  the  true  charac- 
ter of  such  frantic  zeal,  we  hope  to  produce  some  influence 
upon  the  reason  of  man,  and  induce  him  to  rise  superior  to 
such  dreadful  illusions.  The  judicious  remarks  at  the  end  of 
this  account  were  communicated  to  us  by  a  very  intelligent 
and  faithful  friend  to  the  cause  of  Deism. 

Extract  from  a  Letter  of  the  Rev.  George  Scott,  of  Mill  Creek, 
Washington  County,  Pennsylvania,  to  Col.  William  M'Farren, 
of  Mount  Bethel,  Northampton  County,  P.  dated  November  3, 
1802. 

MY  DEAR  FRIEND, 

WE  have  wonderful  times  here.  God  has  been  pleased  to 
visit  this  barren  corner  with  abundance  of  his  grace.  The  work 
began  in  a  neighbouring  congregation,  at  a  sacramental  occa- 
sion, about  the  last  of  September.  It  did  not  make  its  appear- 
ance in  my  congregation  till  the  first  Tuesday  of  October.  Af- 
ter society  in  the  night,  there  appeared  an  evident  stir  among 
the  young  people,  but  nothing  of  the  appearance  of  what  appear- 
ed afterwards.  On  Saturday  evening  following,  we  had  society, 
but  it  was  dull  throughout.  On  Sabbath-day  one  cried  out,  but 
nothing  else  extraordinary  appeared. — That  evening  I  went  part 
of  the  way  to  the  Raccoon  congregation,  when  the  sacrament  of 
the  supper  was  administered  ;  but  on  Monday  morning  a  very 
strong  impression  of  duty  constrained  me  to  return  to  my  con- 
gregation in  the  Flats,  when  the  work  was  begun.  We  met  in  the 
afternoon  at  the  meeting-house,  where  we  had  a  warm  society. 
In  the  evening  we  removed  to  a  neighbouring  house,  where  wo 
continued  in  society  till  midnight  ;  numbers  were  falling  all  the 

'  *It  becomes  necessary  to  insert  Mr.  Scott's  letter,  for  the  due  understanding'  of  the 
comments  made  upon  it,  by  Mr.  Paine.  It  has  also  in  itself  much  interest,  as  exhib- 
iting a  true  picture  of  the  awful  condition  in  which  priestcraft  has  involved  human  na- 
ture, by  inculcating  "  the  doctrines  of  our  fallen  state  by  nature,  and  the  way  of  re- 
covering through  Christ."  A  more  childish  and  besotted  dogma,  I  will  venture  lo 
aay,  wns  never  taught  in  the  most  barbarous  nation  that  ever  existed  in  the  world. 

EDITOR. 


336  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

time  of  the  society. — After  the  people  were  dismissed,  a  consid- 
erable number  staid  and  sung  hymns,  till  perhaps  two  o'clock  in 
the  morning,  when  the  work  began  to  the  astonishment  of  all. 
Only  five  or  six  were  left  able  to  take  care  of  the  rest,  to  the 
number  perhaps  of  near  forty. — They  fell  in  all  directions,  on  ben- 
ches, on  beds,  and  on  the  floor.  Next  morning  the  people  began 
to  flock  in  from  all  quarters.  One  girl  .came  early  in  the  morn- 
ing, but  did  not  get  within  one  hundred  yards  of  the  house,  be- 
fore she  fell  powerless,  and  was  carried  in.  We  could  not  leave 
the  house,  and,  therefore,  continued  society  all  that  day  and  all 
that  night,  and  on  Wendesday  morning,  I  was  obliged  to  leave 
a  number  of  them  on  the  spot.  On  Thursday  evening  we  met 
again,  when  the  work  was  amazing  ;  about  twenty  persons  lay 
to  all  appearance  dead  for  near  two  and  a  half  hours,  and  a  great 
number  cried  out  with  sore  distress. — Friday,  I  preached  at  Mill 
Creek.  Here  nothing  appeared  more  than  an  unusual  solemnity. 
That  evening  we  had  society,  where  great  numbers  were  brought 
under  conviction,  but  none  fell.  On  Sabbath-day  I  preached  at 
Mill  Creek.  This  day  and  evening  was  a  very  solemn  time,  but 
none  fell.  On  Monday  I  went  to  attend  presbytery,  but  return- 
ed on  Thursday  evening  to  the  Flats,  where  society  was  appoint- 
ed, when  numbers  were  struck  down.  On  Saturday  evening 
we  had  society,  and  a  very  solemn  time — about  a  dozen  persons 
lay  dead  three  and  a  half  hours  by  the  watch.  On  Sabbath  a 
number  fell,  and  we  were  obliged  to  continue  all  night  in  society, 
as  we  had  done  every  evening  we  had  met  before.  On  Monday, 
a  Mr.  Hughes  preached  at  Mill  Creek,  but  nothing  extraordinary 
appeared,  only  a  great  deal  of  falling.  We  concluded  to  divide 
that  evening  into  two  societies,  in  order  to  accommodate  the  peo- 
ple. Mr.  H.  attended  the  one  and  I  the  other.  Nothing  strange 
appeared  where  Mr.  H.  attended  ;  but  where  I  attended,  God 
was  present  in  the  most  wonderful  manner.  I  believe  there  was 
not  one  present  but  was  more  or  less  affected.  A  considerable 
number  fell  powerless,  and  two  or  three,  after  laying  some  time, 
recovered  with  joy,  and  spoke  near  half  an  hour.  One,  es- 
pecially, declared  in  a  surprising  manner  the  wonderful  view  she 
nad  of  the  person,  character,  and  offices  of  Christ,  with  such  ac- 
curacy of  language,  that  I  was  astonished  to  hear  it.  Surely 
this  must  be  the  work  of  God  !  On  Thursday  evening  we  had 
a  lively  society,  but  not  much  falling  down.  On  Saturday,  we 
all  went  to  the  Cross  Roads,  and  attended  a  sacrament.  Here 
were,  perhaps,  about  4000  people  collected.  The  weather  was 
uncomfortable  ;  on  the  Sabbath-day  it  rained,  and  on  Monday  it 
snowed.  We  had  thirteen  ministers  present.  The  exercises 
began  on  Saturday,  and  continued  on  night  and  day  with  little  or 
no  intermission.  Great  numbers  fell  ;  to  speak  within  bounds, 
there  were  upwards  of  150  down  at  one  time,  and  some  oCthem 
continued  three  or  fours  with  but  little  appearance^f  life.  JNum- 


MISCELLANEOUS  PIECES  337 

bers  came  to,  rejoicing,  while  others  were  deeply  distressed. — 
The  scene  was  wonderful  ;  the  cries  of  the  distressed,  and  the 
agonizing  groans,  gave  some  faint  representation  of  the  awful 
cries  and  the  bitter  screams,  which  will,  no  doubt,  be  extorted 
from  the  damned  in  hell.  But  what  is  to  me  the  most  surprising, 
of  those  who  have  been  subjects  among  my  people  with  whom  I 


have  conversed,  but  three  had  any  terrors  of  hell  during  their 

y  is,  O 
Christ !     0  how  often  have  I  embrued  my  hands  in  his  precious 


j  j  55 

exercise.     The  principal  cry  is,  O  how  long  have   I   rejected 


blood  !  O  how  often  have  I  waded  through  his  precious  blood  by 
stifling  conviction  !  O  this  dreadful  hard  heart  !  0  what  a  dread- 
ful monster  sin  is  !  It  was  my  sin  that  nailed  Jesus  to  tho 
cross,  &c. 

The  preaching  is  various  ;  some  thunder  the  terrors  of  the  law 
— others  preach  the  mild  invitation  of  the  gospel.  For  my  part, 
since  the  work  began.  I  have  confined  myself  chiefly  to  the  doctrines 
of  our  fallen  state  by  nature,  and  the  way  of  (recovery  through 
Christ ;  opening  the  way  of  salvation  :  showing  how  God  can 
be  just  and  yet  be  the  justifier  of  them  that  believe,  and  also  the 
nature  of  true  faith  and  repentance  ;  pointing  out  the  difference 
between  true  and  false  religion,  and  urging  the  invitations  of  the 
gospel  in  the  most  engaging  manner  that  I  am  master  of,  without 
any  strokes  of  terror.  The  convictions  and  cries  'appear  to  be, 
perhaps,  nearly  equal  under  all  these  different  modes  of  preach- 
ing, but  it  appears  rather  most,  when  we  preach  on  the  fulness 
and  freeness  of  salvation. 


REMAKKS  BY  MR.  PAINE. 

In  the  fifth  chapter  of  Mark,  we  read  a  strange  story  of  the 
Devil  getting  into  swine  after  he  had  been  turned  out  of  a  man, 
and  as  the  freaks  of  the  Devil  in  that  story  and  the  tumble-down 
descriptions  in  this  are  very  much  alike  ;  the  two  stories  ought  to 
go  together. 

"And  they  came  over  unto  the  other  side  of  the  sea,  into  the 
country  of  the  Gadarenes.  And  when  he  was  come  out  of  the 
ship,  immediately  there  met  him  out  of  the  tombs  a  man  with  an 
unclean  spirit,  who  had  his  dwelling  among  the  tombs  ;  and  no 
man  could  bind  him,  no,  not  with  chains  :  because  that  he  had 
been  often  bound  with  fetters  and  chains,  and  the  chains  had  been 
plucked  asunder  by  him,  and  the  fetters  broken  in  pieces  ;  neither 
could  anjr  man  tame  him.  And  always  ni^ht  and  day,  he  was  in 
the  mountains,  and  in  the  tombs,  crying,  and  cutting  himself  with 
stones.  But  when  he  saw  Jesus  afar  off",  he  ran  and  worshipped 
29 


3S&  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES, 

him,  and  cried  with  aloud  voice,  and  said,  what  have  I  to  do  with 
thcc,  Jesus,  thou  son  of  the  most  high  God?  I  adjure  thee  by  God, 
that  thou  torment  me  not.  (For  he  said  unto  him,  come  out  of 
the  man,  tlwu  unclean  spirit.)  And  he  asked  him,  what  is  thy 
name?  and  he  answered,  saying,  my  name  is  Legion  :  for  we  are 
many.  And  he  besought  him  much  that  he  would  not  send  them 
away  out  of  the  country.  Now  there  was  there,  nigh  unto  the 
mountains,  a  great  herd  of  swine  feeding.  And  all  the  devils  be- 
sought him,  Baying,  send  us  into  the  swine,  that  we  may  enter  in- 
to them.  And  forthwith  Jesus  gave  them  leave.  And  the  un- 
clean spirits  went  out,  and  entered  into  the  swine  ;  and  the  herd 
ran  down  a  violently  steep  place  into  the  sea,  (they  were  about 
two  thousand,)  and  were  choked  in  the  sea." 

The  force  of  the  imagination  is  capable  of  producing  strange  ef- 
fects.— When  animal  magnetism  began  in  France,  which  was 
while  Doctor  Franklin  was  minister  to  that  country,  the  wonder- 
ful accounts  given  of  the  wonderful  effects  it  produced  on  the 
persons  who  were  under  the  operation,  exceeded  any  thing  related 
in  the  foregoing  letter  from  Washington  County.  They  tumbled 
down,  fell  into  trances,  roared  and  rolled  about  like  persons  sup- 
posed to  be  bewitched.  The  government,  in  order  to  ascertain 
the  fact,  or  detect  the  imposition,  appointed  a  committee  of  physi- 
cians to  inquire  into  the  case,  and  Doctor  Franklin  was  request- 
ed to  accompany  them,  which  he  did. 

The  committee  went  to  the  operator's  bouse,  and  the  persons 
on  whom  an  operation  was  to  be  performed  were  assembled. 
They  were  placed  in  the  position  in  which  they  had  been  when 
under  former  operations,  and  blind-folded.  In  a  little  time  they 
began  to  show  signs  of  agitation,  and  in  the  space  of  about  two- 
hours  they  went  through  all  the  frantic  airs  they  had  shown  be- 
fore ;  but  the  case  was,  that  no  operation  was  performing  upon 
them,  neither  was  the  operator  in  the  room,  for  he  had  been  order- 
ed out  of  it  by  the  physicians  ;  but  as  the  persons  did  not  know 
this,  they  supposed  him  present  and  operating  upon  them.  It 
was  the  effect  of  imagination  only.  Doctor  Franklin,  in  relating 
this  account  to  the  writer  of  this  article,  said,  that  he  thought  the 
government  might  as  well  have  let  it  gone  on,  for  that  as  imagin- 
ation sometimes  produced  disorders,  it  might  also  cure  some.  It 
is  fortunate,  however,  that  this  falling  down  and  crying  out  scene  did 
not  happen  in  New  England  a  century  ago,  for  if  it  had  the 
preachers  would  have  been  hung  for  witchcraft,  and  in  more  an- 
cient times  the  poor  falling  down  folks  would  have  been  supposed 
to  be  possessed  of  a  devil,  like  the  man  in  Mark,  among  the 
tcaibs.  The  progress  that  reason  and  Deism  make  in  the  world, 
If  wen  the  force  of  suoerstition,  and  abate  the  spirit  of  persecution. 

EXD    OF    THE    THEOLOGICAL    WORKS. 


•MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  339 

THE    STRANGE   STORY    OP 

KORAH,  DATHAN,  AND  ABIRAM. 

Numbers,  chap.  xvi.  accounted  for 


OLD  ballads  sing  of  Chevey-Chace, 
Beneath  whose  rueful  shade, 

Full  many  a  valiant  man  was  slain, 
And  manv  a  widow  made 

But  I  will  tell  of  one  much  worse 
That  happ'd  in  days  of  yore  ; 

All  in  the  barren  wilderness, 
Beside  the  Jordan  shore. 

Where  Moses  led  the  children  forth, 
Call'd  chosen  tribes  of  God, 

And  fed  them  forty  years  with  quails, 
And  ruled  them  with  a  rod. 

A  dreadful  fray  once  rose  among 
These  self-named  tribes  of  I  am  ; 

Where  Korah  fell,  and  by  his  side 
Fell  Dathan  and  Abiram. 

An  earthquake  swallowed  thousands  up, 
And  fire  carne  down  like  stones, 

Which  slew  their  sons  and  daughters  all, 
Their  wives  and  little  ones. 

'Twas  all  about  old  Aaron's  tythes 
This  murdering  quarrel  rose  ; 

For  tythes  are  worldly  things  of  old, 
That  lead  from  words  to  blows. 

A  Jew  of  Venice  has  explained, 
In  the  language  of  his  nation,* 

The  manner  how  this  fray  began, 
Of  which  here  is  translation. 

There  was  a  widow  old  and  poor, 
Who  scarce  herself  could  keep  ; 

Her  stock  of  goods  was  very  small, 
Her  flocks  one  single  sheep. 


340  MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES. 

And  when  her  time  of  shearing  came, 
She  counted  much  her  gains  ; 

For  now,  said  she,  I  shajl  be  blest 
With  plenty  for  my  pains. 

When  Aaron  heard  the  sheep  was  shear'd 
And  gave  a  good  increase, 

He  straightway  sent  his  tything  man 
And  took  away  the  fleece. 

At  this  the  weeping  widow  wen. 

To  Korah  to  complain, 
-    And  Korah  he  to  Aaron  went 
In  order  to  exolain. 

But  Aaron  said  in  such  a  case, 
There  can  be  no  forbearing, 

The  law  ordains  that  thou  shalt  give 
The  first  fleece  of  thy  shearing. 

When  lambing  time  was  come  about, 
This  sheep  became  a  dam  ; 

And  bless'd  the  widow,s  mournful  heart, 
By  bringing  forth  a  lamb. 

When  Aaron  heard  the  sheep  had  young, 

He  staid  till  it  was  grown, 
Then  he  sent  his  tything  man, 

And  took  it  for  his  own. 

Again  the  weeping  widow  went 

To  Korah  with  her  grief, 
But  Aaron  said,  in  such  a  case, 

There  could  be  no  relief, 

For  in  the  holy  law  tis  writ, 

That  whilst  thou  keep'st  the  stock, 

Thou  shalt  present  unto  the  Lord 
The  firstling  of  thy  flock. 

The  widow  then  in  deep  distress, 

And  having  nought  to  eat, 
Against  her  will  she  killed  the  sheep, 

To  feed  uoon  the  meat. 

When  Aaron  heard  the  sheep  was  killed, 

He  sent  and  took  a  limb  ; 
Which  by  the  holy  law  he  said 

Pertained  unto  him  ;     . 


MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES.  341 

For  in  the  holy  law  'tis  writ, 

That  when  thou  kill'st  a  beast, 
Thou  shalt  a  shoulder  and  a  breast . 

Present  unto  the  priest. 

The  widow  then  worn  out  with  grief, 

Sat  down  to  mourn  and  weep  ; 
And  in  a  fit  of  passion  said, 

The  devil  take  the  sheep. 

Then  Aaron  took  the  whole  away, 

And  said  the  laws  record, 
That  all  and  each  devoted  thing 

Belongs  unto  the  Lord. 

The  widow  went  among  her  kin, 

The  tribes  of  Israel  rose  ; 
And  all  the  widows,  young  and  old, 

Pull'd  Aaron  by  the  nose. 

But  Aaron  called  an  earthquake  up, 

And  fire  from  out  the  sky  ; 
And  all  the  consolation  is — 

The  Bible  tells  a  lie. 


THE  TALE  OF  THE  MONK  AND  JEW, 

VERSIFIED. 


AN  unbelieving  Jew  one  day 
Was  skating  o'er  the  icy  way, 
Which  being  brittle  let  him  in, 
Just  deep  enough  to  catch  his  chin  ; 
And  in  that  woful  plight  he  hung, 
With  only  power  to  move  his  tongue. 

A  brother  skater  near  at  hand, 
A  Papist,  born  in  foreign  land, 
With  hasty  strokes  directly  flew 

To  save  poor. Mordecai  the  Jew — 
But  first,  quoth  he,  I  must  enjoin 

That  you  renounce  your  faith  for  mine  ; 

There's  no  entreaties  else  will  do, 

'Tis  heresy  to  help  a  Jew 


342  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES 

"  Forswear  mine  fait  !  No  !  Cot  forbid 
Dat  would  be  fery  base  indeed, 
Come  never  mind  such  tings  as  deeze, 
Tink,  tink,  how  fcry  hard  it  freeze. 
More  coot  you  do,  more  coot  you  be, 
Vat  signifies  your  fait  to  me. 
Come  tink  agen,  how  cold  and  vet, 
And  help  me  out  von  little  bit." 

By  holy  mass,  'tis  hard,  I  own, 
To  see  a  man  both  hang  and  drown, 
And  can't  relieve  him  from  his  plight 
Because  he  is  an  Israelite  ; 
The  church  refuses  all  assistance, 
Beyond  a  certain  pale  and  distance  ; 
And  all  the  service  I  can  lend, 
Is  praying  for  your  soul,  my  friend. 

"  Pray  for  mine  soul,  ha!  ha!  you  make  me  laugh, 
You  petter  help  me  out  py  half : 
Mine  soul  I  farrant  vill  take  care, 
To  pray  for  nown  self,  my  tear  ; 
So  tink  a  little  now  for  me, 
'Tis  I  am  in  de  hole,  not  she." 

The  church  forbids  it,  friend,  and  saith 
That  all  shall  die  who  have  no  faith. 
"  Veil  !  if  I  must  pelieve,  I  must, 
But  help  me  out  von  litttle  first." 

No,  not  an  inch  without  Amen, 
That  seals  the  whole — "  Veil,  hear  me  den 
I  here  renounce  for  coot  and  all, 
De  race  of  Jews  both  great  and  small  ; 
'Tis  the  varst  trade  peneath  the  sun, 
Or  varst  religion  ;  dat's  all  von. 
Dey  cheat,  and  get  deir  living  py't, 
And  lie,  and  swear  de  lie  is  right, 
ril  co  to  mass  as  soon  as  ever 
I  get  to  toder  side  de  river. 
So  help  me  out,  dow  Christian  friend, 
Dat  I  may  do  as  I  intend." 

Perhaps  you  do  intend  to  cheat, 
If  once  you  get  upon  your  feet. 

"  No,  no,  I  do  intend  to  be 
A  Christian,  such  a  one  as  dee." 
For,  thought  the  Jew,  he  is  as  much 
A  Christian  man  as  I  am  such. 

The  bigot  Papist  joyful  hearted 
To  hear  the  heretic  converted, 
Replied  to  the  designing  Jew, 
This  was  a  happy  fall  for  you  : 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  343 


You'd  better  die  a  Christian  now, 
For  if  you  live  you'll  break  your  vow. 
Then  said  no  more,  but  in  a  trice 
Popp'd  Mordecai  beneath  the  ice. 


SOJYG. 

THE  FOURTH  OF  JULY. 

TUNE— "Rule  Brittannia  " 


Hail     great  Republic  of  the  world, 

The  rising  empire  of  the  west ; 

Where  fam'd  Columbus'  mighty  mind  inspired, 

Gave  tortured  Europe  scenes  of  rest ! 

CHORUS. 

Be  thou  for  ever  great,  for  ever  great  and  free, 
The  land  of  love  and  liberty. 

Beneath  thy  spreaamg  mantle  vine, 
Besides  thy  flow'ry  groves  and  springs, 
And  on  thy  lofty,  thy  lofty  mountains'  brow, 
May  all  thy  sons  and  fair  ones  sing, 

Be  thou  for  ever  great,  &,c. 

From  thee  may  hated  Discord  fly, 

With  all  her  dark  and  dreary  train  ; 

And  whilst  thy  mighty,  thy  mighty  waters  roll, 

May  heart  endearing  concord  reign, 

Be  thou  for  ever  great,  &c, 

Far  as  the  vast  Atlantic  pours 

Its  loaded  waves  to  human  sight, 

There  may  thy  starry,  thy«tarry  standard  shine. 

The  constellation  of  thy  rights. 

Be  thou  for  ever  great,  Sec 

Let  laureats  sing  their  birth-day  odes, 
Or  how  that  death,  like  thunders,  hurl'd  ; 
'Tis  ours  the  charter,  the  charter  ours  alone 
To  sing  the  birth-day  of  a  world. 

Be  thou  for  ever  great,  &c 


344  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES 

May  ages,  as  they  rise,  proclaim 

The  glories  of  thy  natal  day  ; 

And  restless  Europe,  from  thy  example  learn 

To  live,  to  rule,  and  to  obey. 

Be  thou  for  ever  great,  Sec. 


Mr.  Fame  corresponded  with  a  lady,  and  dated  his  letters  from 
•'The  Castle  in  Air,"  while  she  addressed  hers  from  "The Little 
Corner  of  the  World."  For  reasons  which  he  knew  not,  their  in- 
tercourse was  suddenly  suspended,  and  for  some  time  he  believed 
his  fair  friend  in  obscurity  and  distress.  Many  years  afterwards, 
however,  he  met  her  unexpectedly  at  Paris  in  the  most  affluent 
circumstances,  and  married  to  Sir  Robert  Smith.  The  following 
is  a  copy  of  one  of  these  poetical  effusions. 


FROM  THE  CASTLE  IN  AIR, 

TO 

THE  LITTLE  .CORNER  OF  THE  WORLD. 


In  the  region  of  clouds  where  the  whirlwinds  arise, 

My  castle  of  faricy  was  built : 
The  turrets  reflected  the  blue  of  the  skies, 

And  the  windows  with  sun-beams  were  gilt. 

• 
The  rainbow  sometimes  in  its  beautiful  state, 

Enamell'd  the  mansion  around, 
And  the  figures  that  fancy  in  clouds  can  create, 

Suoplied  me  with  gardens  and  ground. 

I  had  grottos  and  fountains,  a/id  orange  tree  groves, 

I  had  all  that  enchantment  has  told  j 
I  had  sweet  shady  walks  for  the  gods  and  their  loves, 

I  had  mountains  of  coral  and  gold. 

But  a  storm  that  I  felt  not,  had  risen  and  roll'd, 

While  rapt  in  a  slumber  I  lay : 
And  when  I  looked  out  in  the  morning,  behold! 

My  castle  was  carried  away. 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  345 

It  pass'd  over  rivers,  and  vallies,  and  groves — 

The  world  it  was  all  in  my  view — 
I  thought  of  my  friends,  of  their  fates,  of  their  loves, 

And  often,  full  often  of  you. 

At  length  it  came  over  a  beautiful  scene, 

That  nature  and  silence  had  made  : 
The  place  was  but  small — but  'twas  sweetly  serene, 

And  chequered  with  sun-shine  and  shade. 

I  gaz'd  and  I  envied  with  painful  good  will, 

And  grew  tired  of  my  seat  in  the  air : 
When  all  of  a  sudden  my  castle  stood  still, 

As  if  some  attraction  was  there. 

Like  a  lark  from  the  sky  it  came  fluttering  down, 

And  placed  me  exactly  in  view — 
When  who  should  I  meet  in  this  charming  retreat 

This  corner  of  calmness — but  you. 

Delighted  to  find  you  in  honour  and  ease, 

I  felt  no  more  sorrow  nor  pain  ; 
And  the  wind  coming  fair,  I  ascended  the  breeze 

And  went  back  with  my  castle  again. 


SONG 

,    OH  THE   DEATH  OF 

GENERAL  WOLFE. 


In  a  mouldering  cave,  where  the  Wretched  retreat, 

Britannia  sat  wasted  with  care  ; 
She  mourn'd  for  her  Wolfe,  and  ex claim'd  against  fate, 

And  gave  herself  up  to  despair. 
The  walls  of  her  cell  she  had  sculptured  around 

With  the  feats  of  her  favourite  son, 
And  even  the  dust,  as  it  lay  on  the  ground, 

Was  engraved  with  some  deeds  he  had  done. 

The  sire  of  the  gods,  from  his  chrystalline  throne, 

Beheld  the  disconsolate  dame, 
And,  moved  with  her  tears,  he  sent  Mercury  down, 

And  these  were  the  tidings  that  came  : 


.346  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

Britannia,  forbear,  not  a  sigh,  or  a  tear, 
For  thy  WoLe,  so  deservedly  loved  ; 

Your  tears  shall  be  changed  into  triumphs  of  joy, 
For  thy  Wolfe  is  not  dead  but  removed. 

The  sons  of  the  east,  the  proud  giants  of  old, 

Have  crept  from  their  darksome  abodes, 
And  this  is  the  ne.vs,  as  in  heaven  it  was  told, 

They  were  marching  to  war  with  the  gods. 
A  council  was  held  in  the  chambers  of  Jove, 

And  this  was  their  final  decree, 
That  Wolfe  should  be  -call'd  to  the  armies  above, 

And  the  charge  was  entrusted  to  me. 

To  the  plains  of  Quebec  with  the  orders  I  flew, 

He  beggM  for  a  moment's  delay  ; 
He  cry'd,  u  Oh  forbear,  let  me  victory  hear, 

"  And  then  thy  commands  I'll  obey." 
With  a  darksome  thick  film  I  encompass'd  his  eyes, 

And  bore  him  away  in  an  urn  ; 
Lest  the  fondness  he  bore  to  his  own  native  shore 

Should  induce  him  again  to  return. 


LIBERTY  TREE. 


TUNE—"  The  Gods  of  the  Greeks  " 


In  a  chariot  of  light,  from  the  regions  of  day, 

The  goddess  of  liberty  came, 
Ten  thousand  celestials  directed  the  way, 

And  hither  conducted  the  dame. 
A  fair  budding  branch  from  the  garden  above, 

Where  millions  with  millions  agree, 
She  brought  in  her  hand,  as  a  pledge  of  her  love, 

And  the  plant  she  named  Liberty  tree. 

The  celestial  exotic  struck  deep  in  the  ground, 
Like  a  native  it  flourish'd  and  bore  : 

The  fame  of  its  fruit  drew  the  nations  around, 
To  seek  out  this  peaceable  shore 


MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES.  347 

Unmindful  of  names  or  distinction  they  came, 

For  freemen  like  brothers  agree  ; 
With  one  spirit  endued,  they  one  friendship  pursued, 

And  their  temple  was  Liberty  tree. 

in. 
Beneath  this  fair  tree,  like  the .  patriarchs  of  old, 

Their  bread  in  contentment  they  ate, 
Unvex'd  with  the  troubles  of  silver  or  gold, 

The  cares  of  the  grand  and  the  great. 
With  timber  and  tar  they  Old  England  supplied, 

And  supported  her  pow'r  on  the  sea  : 
Her  battles  they  fought,  without  getting  a  groat, 

For  the  honour  of  Liberty  tree. 

IV. 

But  hear,  0  ye  swains  ('tis  a  tale  most  profane,^ 

How  all  the  tyrannical  pow'rs, 
King,  Commons,  and  Lords,  are  uniting  amain, 

To  cut  down  this  guardian  of  ours. 
From  the  east  to  the  west  blow  the  trumpet  to  arms, 

Through  'the  land  let  the  sound  of  it  flee  ; 
Let  the  far  and  the  near,  all  unite  with  a  cheer, 

In  defence  of  our  Liberty  tree. 


348  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 


EPITAPH 

FOR    THE    TOMB    OF 

THOMAS  PAIWE, 

WRITTEN  BY  A  FRIEND. 


Here  moulders  in  this  dusk  abode, 
One  who  to  faith  no  homage  show'd  : 
By  moral  law  his  life  he  tried, 
While  social  duty  was  his  guide,         -^ 
And  pure  philanthropy  the  end 
Of  all  he  did  or  could  intend. 

Prayer  he  pronounced  impiety, 
Vain  prompter  of  divine  decree  : 
That  oft  implores,  with  erring  zeal, 
For  boons  subversive  of  its  weal  : 
Yet  he  retained  a  grateful  sense, 
Of  bountiful  omnipotence  ; 
Nor  blushed  with  reverence  to  own, 
That  blessing  sprang  from  GOD  alone. 

Thus  unappall'd,  he  simk  to  rest, 
To  rise  or  lie  as  heaven  thought  best  : 
Yet  future  hope  he  did  not  wave, 
Nor  mercy  for  transgressions  crave, 
The  God  who  gave  him  life  will  save.* 

*  THOMAS  PAINE  was  born  at  Thetford,  in  England,  on  the  29th  day  of  January, 
1737,  and  died  at  New-York,  on  the  8th  of  June,  1809,  aged  a  little  over  seventy-two 
years  and  four  months. 


MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES.  349 


THE  WILL  OF  THOMAS  PAINE. 


The  last  Will  and  Testament  of  me,  the  subscriber,  Thomas 
Paine,  reposing  confidence  in  my  Creator  God,  and  in  no  other 
being,  for  I  know  of  no  other,  nor  believe  in  any  other.  I 
Thomas  Paine,  of  the  State  of  New- York,  author  of  the  work 
entitled  Cowman  Sense,  written  in  Philadelphia,  in  1775,  and 
published  in  that  city  the  beginning  of  January,  1776,  which 
awoke  America  to  a  declaration  of  Independence  on  the  fourth 
of  July  following,  which  was  as  fast  as  the  work  could  ^spread 
through  such  an  extensive  country  ;  author  also  of  the  several 
numbers  of  the  American  Crisis,  thirteen  in  all  ;  published  occa- 
sionally during  the  progress  of  the  revolutionary  war — the  last 
is  on  the  peace  ;  author  also  of  Rights  of  Man,  parts  the  first 
and  second,  written  and  published  in  London,  in  1791  and  1792  ; 
author  also  of  a  work  on  religion,  Age  of  Reason,  part  the  first 
and  second.  N.  B.  I  have  a  third  part  by  me  in  manuscript, 
and  an  answer  to  the  bishop  of  Llandaff ;  author  also  of  a  work, 
lately  published,  entitled  Examination  of  the  Passages  in  the  New 
Testament,  Quoted  from  the  Old,  and  called  Propheciesconcerning 
Jesus  Christ,  and  shelving  there  are  no  Prophecies  of  any  such 
Person  ;  author  also  of  several  other  works  not  here  enumerated, 
Dissertation  on  the  First  Principles  of  Government, — Decline  and 
Fall  of  the  English  System  of  Finance — Agrarian  Justice,  &c.  &,c. 
make  this  my  last  Will  and  Testament,  that  is  to  say  :  I  give 
and  bequeath  to  my  executors  hereinafter  appointed,  Walter 
Morton  and  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  thirty  shares  I  hold  in  the 
New- York  Phoenix  Insurance  Company,  which  cost  me  fourteen 
hundred  and  seventy  dolllars,  they  are  worth  now  upwards  of 
fifteen  hundred  dollars,  and  all  my  moveable  effects,  and  also 
the  money  that  may  be  in  my  trunk  or  elsewhere  at  the  time  of 
my  decease,  paying  thereout  the  expenses  of  my  funeral,  IN 
TRUST  as  to  the  said  shares,  moveables,  and  money  for  Margaret 
Brazier  Bonneville,  of  Paris,  for  her  own  sole  and  separate  use, 
and  at  her  own  disposal,  notwithstanding  her  coverture.  As  to 
my  farm  in  New  Rochelle,  I  give,  devise,  and  bequeath  the  same 
to  my  said  executors,  Walter  Morton  and  Thomas  Addis  Em- 
met, and  to  the  survivor  of  them,  his  heirs  and  assigns  forever,  IN 
TRUST  nevertheless,  to  sell  and  dispose  thereof,  now  in  the  occu- 
pation of  Andrew  A.  Dean,  beginning  at  the  west  end  of  the 
orchard,  and  running  in  a  line  with  the  land  sold  to 


350  MISCELLANEOUS    PIECES. 

Coles,  to  the  end  of  the  farm,  and  to  apply  the  money  arising 
from  such  sale  as  hereinafter  directed.  I  give  to  my  friends 
Walter  Morton,  of  the  New  York  Phoenix  Insurance  Company, 
and  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  Counsellor  at  Law,  late  of  Ireland, 
two  hundred  dollars  each,  and  one  hundred  dollars  to  Mrs.  Palm- 
er, widow  of  Elihu  Palmer,  late  of  New- York,  to  be  paid  out 
of  the  money  arising  from  said  sale  ;  and  I  give  the  remainder 
of  the  money  arising  from  that  sale,  one  half  thereof  to  Clio 
Rickman,  of  High  or  Upper  Mary-le-Bone  Street,  London,  and 
the  other  half  to  Nicholas  Bonneville  of  Paris,  husband  of 
Margaret  B.  Bonneville,  aforesaid  :  and  as  to  the  south  part  of 
the  said  farm,  containing  upwards  of  one  hundred  acres,  in  trust 
to  rent  out  the  same  or  otherwise  put  it  to  profit,  as  shall  bo 
found  most  adviseable,  and  to  pay  the  rents  and  promts  thereof  to 
the  said  Margaret  B.  Bonneville,  in  trust  for  her  children,  Ben- 
jamin Bonneville,  and  Thomas  Bonneville  their  education  and 
maintenance,  until  they  corne  to  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  in 
order  that  she  may  bring  them  well  up,  give  them  good  and  use- 
ful learning,  and  instruct  them  in  their  duty  to  God,  and  the 
practice  of  morality,  the  rent  of  the  land,  or  the  interest  of  the 
money  for  which  it  may  be  sold,  as  hereinafter  mentioned,  to  be 
employed  in  their  education.  And  after  the  youngest  of  trie  said 
children  shall  have  arrived  at  the  age  of  twenty-one  years,  in 
further  trust  to  convey  the  same  to  the  said  children,  share  and 
share  alike,  in  fee  simple.  But  if  it  shall  be  thought  advisable 
by  my  executors  and  -executrix,  or  the  survivor  or  survivors  of 
them,  at  any  time  before  the  youngest  of  the  said  children  shall 
come  of  age,  to  sell  and  dispose  of  the  said  south  side  of  the  said 
farm,  in  that  case  I  hereby  authorize  and  empower  my  said  ex- 
ecutors to  sell  and  dispose  of  the  same,  and  I  direct  that  the 
money  arising  from  such  sale  be  put  into  stock,  either  in  the 
United  States  Bank  stock,  or  New  York  Phcenix  Insurance 
Company  stock,  the  interest  or  dividends  thereof  to  be  applied  as 
is  already  directed  for  the  education  and  maintenance  of  the  said 
children,  and  the  principal  to  be  transferred  to  the  said  children, 
or  the  survivor  of  them,  on  his  or  their  coming  of  age.  I  know 
not  if  the  society  of  people  called  Quakers  admit  a  person  to  be 
buried  in  their  burying  ground,  who  does  rfot  belong  to  their 
society,  but  if  they  do,  or' will  admit  me,  I  would  prefer  being 
buried  there  :  my  father  belonged  to  that  profession,  and  I  was 
partly  brought  up  in  it.  But  if  it  is  not  consistent  with  their 
rules  to  do  this,  I  desire  to  be  buried  on  my  farm  at  New  Ro- 
chelle.  The  place  where  I  am  to  be  buried,  td  be  a  square  of 
twelve  feet,  to  be  enclosed  with  rows  of  trees,  and  a  stone  or 
post  and  rail  fence,  with  a  head  stone  with  my  name  and  age 
ongravcd  upon  it,  author  of  Common  sense.  I  nominate,  consti-* 
tute  and  appoint  Walter  Moi-ton,  of  the  New  York  Phcenix 
Insurance  Company,  and  Tho  mas  Addis  Emmet,  counsellor  at 


MISCELLANEOUS   PIECES  351 

law,  late  of  Ireland,  and  Margaret  B.  Bonneville,  executors  and 
executrix  to  this  my  last  Will  and  Testament,  requesting  them 
the  said  Walter  Morton  and  Thomas  Addis  Emmet,  that  they 
will  give  what  assistance  they  conveniently  can  to  Mrs.  Bonne- 
ville, and  see  that  the  children  be  well  brought  up.  Thus  plac- 
ing confidence  in  their  friendship,  I  herewith  take  my  final  leave 
of  them  and  of  the  world.  I  have  lived  an  honest  and  useful 
life  to  mankind  ;  my  time  has  been  spent  in  doing  good,  and  I 
die  in  perfect  composure  and  resignation  to  the  will  of  my  Crea- 
tor God.  Dated  this  eighteenth  day  of  January,  in  ,the  year  one 
thousand  eight  hundred  and  nine  ;  and  I  have  also  signed  my 
name  to  the  other  sheet  of  this  Will  in  testimony  of  its  being  a 
part  thereof. 

THOMAS  PAINE.     [L.  S  J 


PROFESSION  OF  FAITH 

OP 
A  SAVOYARD  VICAR! 

EXTRACTED  FROM  EMILIUS  ;    OR,  A  TREATISE  OF  EDUCATION, 
BY  J.  J.  ROUSSEAU. 


THE  author  introduces  the  principles  and  opinions  of  the  Sa- 
voyard Vicar  with  the  following  preliminary  remarks  : 

I  foresee  how  much  my  readers  will  be  surprised  to  find  I  have 
attended  my  pupil  throughout  the  whole  first  age  of  life,  without 
once  speaking  to  him  of  religion.  He  hardly  knows  at  fifteen 
'  years  of  age  whether  or  not  he  has  a  soul,  and  perhaps  it  will 
not  be  time  to  inform  him  of  it  when  he  is  eighteen  ;  for,  if  he 
learns  it  too  soon,  he  runs  a  risk  of  never  knowing  it  at  all. 

If  I  were  to  design  a  picture  of  the  most  deplorable  stupidity, 
I  would  draw  a  pedant  teaching  children  their  catechism  :  and 
were  I  resolved  to  crack  the  brain  of  a  child,  I  would  oblige  him 
to  explain  what  he  said  when  he  repeated  his  catechism.  It  may 
be  objected,  that  the  greater  part  of  the  dogmas  of  Christianity 
being  mysterious,  to  expect  the  human  mind  should  be  capable 
of  conceiving  them,  is  not  so  much  to  expect  children  should  be 
men,  but  that  man  should  be  something  more.  To  this  I  an- 
swer, in  the  first  place,  that  there  are  mysteries,  which  it  is  not 
only  impossible  for  man  to  comprehend,  but  also  to  believe  ;  and 
I  do  not  see  what  we  get  by  teaching  them  to  children,  unless  it 
be  to  learn  them  betimes  to  tell  lies.  I  will  say  farther,  that  be- 
fore we  admit  of  mysteries,  it  is  necessary  for  us  to  comprehend, 
at  least,  that  they  are  incomprehensible,  and  children  are  not 
even  capable  of  this.  At  an  age  when  every  thing  is  mysteri- 
ous, there  are  no  such  things  properly  speaking,  as  mysteries. 

Believe  in  God,  and  thou  shall  be  saved.  This  dogma,  misun- 
derstood, is  the  principle  of  sanguinary  persecution,  and  the 
cause  of  ail  those  futile  instructions  which  have  given  a  mortal 
blow  to  human  reason,  by  accustoming  it  to  be  satisfied  with 
words. 

To  impose  an  obligation  of  believing,  supposes  the  possibility 
of  it.  But  though  a  child  should  profess  the  Christian  religion, 
what  can  he  believe  ?  He  can  believe  only  what  he  conceives, 


354  PROFESSION    OF    FAITH    OF 

and  he  conceives  so  little  of  what  is  said  to  him,  that  if  you  tell 
him  directly  the  contrary,  he  adopts  the  latter  dogma  as  readily 
as  he  did  the  former.  The  faith  of  children,  and  indeed  of  many 
grown  persons,  is  merely  an  affair  of  geography.  Are  they  to 
be.rewarded  in  heaven,  because  they  were  born  at  Rome,  and 
not  at  Mecca  ?  One  man  is  told  that  Mahomet  was  a  prophet 
sent  by  God,  and  he  accordingly  says  that  Mahomet  was  a  proph- 
et sent  by  God  ;  the  other  is  told  that  Mahomet  was  an  impos- 
tor, and  he  also  in  like  manner  says  Mahomet  was  an  impostor. 
Had  these  two  persons  only  changed  places,  each  would  also 
have  changed  his  tone,  and  affirmed  what  he  now  denies.  Can 
w\3  infer  from  two  dispositions  so  much  alike,  that  one  will  go  to 
heaven,  .and  the  other  to  hell  ?  When  a  child  says  he  believes 
in  God,  it  is  not  in  God  he  believes,  but  in  Peter  or  James,  who 
tells  him  there  is  something  which  is  called  God  :  he  believes  in 
the  manner  of  Euripides,  when  Jupiter  was  thus  addressed  in 
one  of  his.  tragedies  ;* 

O  Jupiter!  Though  nothing  I  know  of  thee  but  thy  name, 

All  the  difference  that  I  see  here  between  me  and  my  readers 
is  that  you  think  children  of  seven  years  of -age  capacitated  to 
believe  in  God,  and  I  do  not  think  them  capable  of  it  even  at  fif- 
teen. Whether  I  am  right  or  wrong  in  this  particular,  it  is  not 
in  itself  an  article  rf  faith,  but  only  a  simple  observation  in  nat- 
ural history. 

Let  us  beware  of  divulging  the  truth  to  those  who  are  incapa- 
ble of  understanding  it  :  for  this  is  the  way  to  substitute  error  in 
the  room  of  it.  It  were  better  to  have  no  idea  of  God  at  all, 
than  to  entertain  those  which  are  mean,  fantastical,  injurious,  and 
unworthy  a  divine  object  ;  it  is  a  less  crime  to  be  ignorant  of, 
than  insult  him.  I  had  much  rather  says  the  amiable  Plutarch, 
that  people  should  believe  there  is  no  such  person  as  Plutarch  in 
the  world,  than  that  they  should  say,  he  is  unjust,  envious,  jeal- 
ous, and  so  tyrannical  as  to  require  of  others  what  he  has  not 
left  them  power  to  perform. 

The  great  evil  of  those  preposterous  images  of  the  Deity, 
which  we  may  trace  in  the  minds  of  children,  is,  that  they  remain 
indelible  during  their  whole  life  ;  and  that  when  they  are  men, 
they  have  no  better  conceptions  of  God  than  they  had  when  they 
were  children.  Custom  and  prejudice  triumph  particularly  in 
matters  of  religion.  But  how  shall  we,  who  on  all  occasions 
pretend  to  shake  off  its  yoke  ;  we,  who  pay  no  regard  to  the  au- 
thority of  opinion  ;  who  would  teach  our  pupil  nothing  but  what 
he  might  have  learned  himself^  in  any  country  ;  in  what  religion 
shall  we  educate  Emilius  ?  To  what  sect  shall  we  unite  the  man 

*  The  tragedy  of  Menalippns,  which  at  first  began  with  this  line;  but  the  clamours 
of  the  Athenians  obliged  Euripides  afterwards  to  alter  it. — Plutarch. 


A    SAVOYARD    VICAR.  355 

• 

of  nature  ?  The  answer  appears  to  me  very  simple  ;  we  shall 
unite  him  neither  to  one  nor  another  ;  but  place  him  in  a  proper 
situation,  and  qualify  him  to  make  choice  of  that  which  the  best 
use  of  his  reason  may  induce  him  to  adopt. 

Incedo  per  ignes 

Suppo&itos  cineri  doloso.* 

No  matter  ;  my  zeal  and  sincerity  have  hitherto  stood  me  in  the 
stead  of  prudence.  I  hope  these,  my  securities,  will  not  forsake 
me  in  necessity.  Fear  not,  readers,  that  I  shall  take  any  pre- 
cautions unworthy  a  friend  to  truth  ;  I  shall  never  lose  sight  of 
my  motto  j  but  certainly  I  may  be  permitted  to  distrust  my  own 
judgment.  Instead  of  telling  you  what  I  think  myself,  I  will 
give  you  the  sentiments  of  a  man  of  greater  weight  than  I  am. 
I  answer  for  the  veracity  of  the  facts  which  are  here  related  ; 
they  really  happened  to  the  author  of  the  paper  I  am  going  to 
transcribe.  It  is  your  business  to  see  if  any  useful  reflections 
may  be  drawn  from  it  relative  to  the  subject  of  which  it  treats.  I 
neither  propose  the  sentiments  of  myself  or  another,  as  a  rule 
for  you,  but  only  submit  them  to  your  examination. 

About  thirty  years  ago,  a  young  man,  who  had  forsaken  his 
own  country,  and  rambled  into  Italy,  found  himself  reduced  to 
circumstances  of  great  poverty  and  distress.  He  had  been  bred 
a  Calvinist  ;  but,  in  consequence  of  his  misconduct,  and  of  be- 
ing unhappily  a  fugitive  in  a  foreign  country,  without  money  or 
friends,  he  was  induced  to  change  his  religion  for  the  sake  of 
subsistence.  To  this  end  he  procured  admittance  into  an  house 
established  for  the  reception  of  proselytes.  Here,  the  instruc- 
tions he  received  concerning  some  controversial  points,  excited 
doubts  he  had  not  before  entertained,  and  brought  him  first  ac- 
quainted with  the  evil  of  the  step  he  had  taken.  He  was  taught 
strange  dogmas,  and  was  eye-witness  to  stranger  manners  ;  and 
to  these  he  saw  himself  a  destined  victim.  He  now  attempted  to 
make  his  escape,  but  was  prevented  and  more  closely  confined  ; 
if  he  complained,  he  was  punished  for  complaining  ;  and,  lying 
at  the  mercy  of  his  tyrannical  oppressors,  found  himself  treated 
as  a  criminal,  because  he  could  not  without  reluctance  submit  to 
be  so.  He  had  been  doubtless  entirely  ruined,  had  it  not  been 
for  the  good  offices  of  an  honest  ecclesiastic,  who  came  to  the 
hospital  on  some  business,  and  with  whom  he  found  an  opportu- 
nity of  a  private  conference.  The  good  priest  was  himself  poor, 
and  stood  in  need  of  every  one's  assistanc9  ;  the  oppressed  prose- 
lyte, however,  stood  yet  in  greater  need  of  him  ;  the  former  did  not 
hesitate,  therefore,  to  favour  his '  escape,  at  the  risk  of  making 
himself  a  powerful  enemy. 

This  good  priest  was  naturally  humane  and  compassionate,  his 
own  misfortunes  had  taught  him  to  feel  for  those  of  others,  nor 
had  prosperity  hardened  his  heart  ;  in  a  word,  the  maxims  of  true 

*  I  am  treading  upon  firea  hid  under  deceitful  ashes. — ED. 


356  PROFESSION    OF    FAITH    OF 

« 

wisdom  and  conscious  virtue,  had  confirmed  the  goodness  of  his 
natural  disposition.  He  cordially  embraced  the  young  wanderer, 
provided  him  a  lodging,  and  shared  with  him  the  slender  means 
of  his  own  subsistence.  Nor  was  this  all ;  he  went  still  farther, 
giving  him  both  instruction  and  consolation,  in  order  to  teach  him 
that  difficult  art  of  supporting  adversity  with  patience.  Could 
you  believe,  ye  sons  of  prejudice  !  that  a  priest,  and  a  priest  in 
Italy  too,  could  be  capable  of  this. 

This  honest  ecclesiastic  was  a  poor  Savoyard,  who,  having  in 
his  younger  days  incurred  the  displeasure  of  his  bishop,  was 
obliged  to  pass  the  mountains,  in  order  to  seek  that  provision 
which  was  denied  him  in  his  own  country.  He  was  neither  de- 
ficient in  literature  nor  understanding  ;  his  talents,  therefore,  to- 
gether with  an  engaging  appearance,  soon  procured  him  protec- 
tors, who  recommended  him  to  be  tutor  to  a  young  man  of 
quality.  He  preferred  poverty,  however,  to  dependance  ;  and, 
being  a  stranger  to  the  manners  and  behaviour  of  the  great,  ho 
remained  but  a  short  time  in  that  situation.  In  quitting  this  ser- 
vice, nevertheless  he  did  not  lose  the  esteem  of  his  patron  ;  and, 
as  he  behaved  with  great  prudence,  and  was  universally  beloved, 
he  flattered  himself  he  should  in  time  regain  the  good  opinion  of 
his  bishop,  and  obtain  some  little  benefice  in  the  mountains, 
where  he  hoped  to  spend  the  rest  of  his  days.  This  was  the 
height  of  his  ambition.  , 

Interested,  by  a  natural  propensity,  in  favour  of  the  young  fu- 
gitive, he  examined  very  carefully  into  his  character  and  dispo- 
sition. In  this  examination,  he  saw  that  his  misfortunes  had  al- 
ready debased  his  heart  ;  that  the  shame  and  contempt  to  which 
he  had  been  exposed,  had  depressed  his  courage,  and  that  his 
disappointed  pride,  converted  into  indignation,  deduced  from  the 
injustice  and  cruelty  of  mankind,  the  depravity  of  human  nature, 
and  the  emptiness  of  virtue.  He  had  observed  religion  made 
use  of  as  a  mask  to  self-interest,  and  its  worship  as  a  cloak  to 
hypocrisy.  He  had  seen  the  terms  heaven  and  hell  prostituted 
in  the  subtility  of  vain  disputes  ;  the  joys  of  the  one  and  pains 
of  the  other  being  annexed  to  a  mere  repetition  of  words.  He 
had  observed  the  sublime  and  primitive  idea  of  the  divinity  dis- 
figured by  the  fantastical  imaginations  of  men  ;  and  finding  that, 
in  order  to  believe  in  God,*  it  was  necessary  to  givo  up  that  un- 
derstanding he  hath  bestowed  on  us,  he  held  in  the  same  disdain 
as  well  the  sacred  object  of  our  idle  reveries,  as  those  reveries 
themselves.  Without  knowing  any  thing  of  natural  causes,  or 
giving  himself  any  trouble  to  think  about  them,  he  had  plunged 
himself  into  the  most  stupid  ignorance,  mixed  with  the  most  pro- 
found contempt  for  those  who  pretended  to  know  more  than  him- 
self. 

But  I  will  continue  to  speak  no  longer  in  the  third  person, 
*  That  is,  as  represented  by  priestcraft,-— ED. 


A   SAVOYARD    VICAR.  357 

which  is  indeed  a  superfluous  caution  ;  as  you  are  very  sensible, 
my  dear  countrymen,  that  the  unhappy  fugitive  I  have  been 
speaking  of  is  myself.  I  conceive  myself  far  enough  removed 
from  the  irregularities  of  my  youth  to  dare  to  avow  them  ;  and 
think  the  hand  which  extricated  me  from  them,  too  well  deserv- 
ing my  gratitude,  for  me  not  to  do  it  honour,  at  the  expence  of  a 
little  shame. 

The  most  striking  circumstance  of  all,  was  to  observe,  in  the 
retired  life  of  my  worthy  master,  virtue,  without  hypocrisy,  hu- 
manity without  weakness,  his  conversation  always  honest  and 
simple,  and  his  conduct  ever  conformable  to  his  discourse.  I 
never  found  him  troubling  himself  whether  the  persons  he  assist- 
ed went  constantly  to  vespers  ;  whether  they  went  frequently  to 
confession,  or  fasted  on  certain  days  of  the  week  :  nor  did  I  ever 
know  him  impose  on  them  any  of  those  conditions,  without  which 
a  man  might  perish  for  want,  and  have  no  hopes  of  relief  from 
the  devout. 

Encouraged  by  these  observations,  so  far  was  I  from  affecting, 
in  his  presence,  the  forward  zeal  of  a  new  proselyte,  that  I  took 
no  pains  to  conceal  my  thoughts,  nor  did  I  ever  remark  his  be- 
ing scandalized  at  this  freedom.  Hence  have  I  sometimes  said 
to  myself,  He  certainly  overlooks  my  indifference  for  the  new 
mode  of  worship  I  have  embraced,  in  consideration  of  the  disre- 
gard which  he  sees  I  have  for  that  in  which  I  was  educated  ;  as 
he  finds  my  indifference  is  not  partial  to  either.  As  I  lived  with 
him  in  the  greatest  intimacy,  I  learned  every  day  to  respect  him 
more  and  more  ;  and  as  he  had  entirely  won  my  heart  by  so 
many  acts  of  kindness,  I  waited  with  an  impatient  curiosity,  to 
know  the  principles  on  which  a  life  and  conduct  so  singular  and 
uniform  could  be  founded. 

It  was  sometime,  however,  before  this  curiosity  was  satisfied. 
Before  he  would  disclose  himself  to  his  disciple,  he  endeavoured 
to  cultivate  those  seeds  of  reason  and  goodness  which  ho  had 
sown  in  his  mind. 

In  withdrawing  the  gaudy  veil  of  external  appearances,  and 
presenting  to  my  view  the  real  evils  it  covered,  he  taught  me  to 
lament  the  failings  of  my  fellow-creatures,  to  sympathize  with 
their  miseries,  and  to  pity  instead  of  envying  them.  Moved  to 
compassion  for  human  frailties,  from  a  deep  sense  of  his  own,  he 
saw  mankind  every  where  the  victims  either  of  their  own  vices 
or  of  those  of  others  ;  he  saw  the  poor  groan  beneath  the  yoke 
of  the  rich,  and  the  rich  beneath  that  of  their  own  prepossessions 
and  prejudices.  Believe  me,  said  he,  our  mistaken  notions  of 
things  are  so  far  from  concealing  our  misfortunes  from  our  view, 
that  they  augment  those  evils,  by  rendering  trifles  of  importance, 
and  making  us  sensible  of  a  thousand  wants,  which  we  should 
never  have  known  but  from  our  prejudices.  Peace  of  mind  con- 
sists in  a  contempt  for  every  thing  that  may  disturb  it.  The  man 


358  PROFESSION    OF   FAITH    OF 

who  gives  himself  the  greatest  concern  about  life,  is  he  who  en- 
joys it  least  ;  and  he  who  aspires  the  most  earnestly  after  hap- 
piness is  always  the  most  miserable. 

Alas  !  cried  I,  with  all  the  bitterness  of  discontent,  what  a  de- 
plorable picture  do  you  present  of  human  life  !  If  we  may  in- 
dulge ourselves  in  nothing,  to  what  purpose  are  we  born  ?  If 
we  must  despise  even  happiness  itself,  who  is  there  can  know 
what  it  is  to  be  happy  ?  I  know,  replied  the  good  priest,  in  a 
tone  and  manner  that  struck  me.  You  !  said  I,  so  little  favoured 
by  fortune  !  so  poor  !  exiled  !  persecuted  !  can  you  be  happy  ? 
And  if  you  are,  what  have  you  done  to  purchase  happiness  ?  My 
dear  child,  returned  he,  I  will  very  readily -tell  you.  As  you 
have  freely  confessed  to  me,  I  will  do  the  same  to  you.  I  will 
disclose  to  you,  said  he,  embracing  me,  all  the  sentiments  of  my 
heart.  You  shall  see  me,  if  not  such  as  I  really  am,  at  least 
s.uch  as  I  think  myself  to  be  ;  and  when  you  have  heard  my 
whole  profession  of  faith,  you  will  know  why  I  think  myself  hap- 
py ;  and,  rf  you  think  as  I  do,  what  you  have  to  do  to  become 
so  likewise.  But  this  profession  is  not  to  be  made  in  a  moment  : 
it  will  require  some  time  to  disclose  to  you  my  thoughts  on  the 
situation  of  man,  and  the  real  value  of  human  life  ; — we  will  take 
a  proper  opportunity  for  an  hour's  uninterrupted  conversation  on 
this  subject. 

As  I  expressed  an  earnest  desire  for  such  an  opportunity,  it 
was  put  off  only  to  the  next  morning.  It  was  in  summer-time, 
and  we  rose  at  break  of  day  ;  when,  taking  me  out  of  town,  he 
led  me  to  the  top  of  a  hill,  at  the  foot  of  which  ran  the  river  Po, 
watering  the  fertile  vales.  That  immense  chain  of  mountains 
the  Alps,  terminated  the  distant  prospect.  The  rising  sun  had 
cast  its  orient  rays  over  the  gilded  plains,  and,  by  projecting  the 
long  shadows  of  the  trees,  the  houses,  and  adjacent  hills,  describ- 
ed the  most  beautiful  scene  ever  mortal  eye  beheld.  One  might 
have  been  tempted  to  think  that  nature  had  at  this  time  displayed 
all  its  magnificence,  as  a  subject  for  our  conversation.  Here  it 
was,  that,  after  contemplating  for  a  short  time  the  surrounding 
objects  in  silence,  my  guide  and  benefactor  thus  began. 

Expect  not  either  learned  declamations  or  profound  arguments; 
I  am  no  great  philosopher,  and  I  give  myself  little  trouble  wheth- 
er I  ever  shall  be  such  or  not.  But  I  perceive  sometimes  the 
glimmering  of  good-sense,  and  have  always  a  regard  to  truth. 
I  will  not  enter  into  any  disputation,  or  endeavour  to  refute  you  ; 
but  only  lay  down  my  own  sentiments  in-  simplicity  of  heart :  con- 
sult your  own,  during  this  exposition  ;  this  is  all  I  require  of  you. 
If  I  am  mistaken,  it  is  undesignedly  j  which  is  sufficient  to  clear 
me  of  all  criminal  error  ;  and  if  you  are  in  like  manner  unwitting- 
ly deceived,  is  of  little  consequence  :  if  I  am  right,  reason  is 
common  to  both  ;  we  are  equally  interested  in  listening  to  it  : 
and  why  should  you  not  think  as  1  do. 


A    SAVOYARD    VICAR.  259 

I  was  born  a  poor  peasant,  destined  by  my  situation  to  the 
business  of  husbandry  ;  it  was  thought,  however,  much  more  ad- 
viseable  for  me  to  learn  to  get  my  bread  by  the  profession  of  a 
priest  ;  and  means  were  found  to  give  me  a  proper  education. 
In  this,  most  certainly,  neither  my  parents  nor  I  consulted  what 
was  really  good,  true,  or  useful  for  me  to  know  ;  but  only  that  I 
should  learn  what  was  necessary  to  my  ordination.  I  learned, 
therefore,  what  was  required  of  rne  to  learn,  I  said- what  was  re- 
quired of  me  to  say,  and  accordingly  was  made  a  priest.*  I  was 
not  long,  however,  before  I  perceived  too  plainly,  that,  in  laying 
myself  under  an  obligation  to  be  no  longer  a  man,  I  had  engag- 
ed for  more  than  I  could  possibly  perform. 

I  was  in  that  state  of  doubt  and  uncertainty,  in  which  Descar- 
tes requires  the  mind  to  be  involved  in  order  to  enable  it  to  in- 
vestigate truth.  This  disposition  of  mind,  however,  is  too  dis- 
quieting to  last  long  ;  its  duration  being  owing  only  to  vice  or 
indolence.  My  heart  was  not  so  corrupt  as  to  seek  such  indul- 
gence ;  and  nothing  preserves  so  well  the  habit  of  reflection,  as 
to  be  more  content  with  ourselves  than  with  our  fortune. 

I  reflected,  therefore,  on  the  unhappy  lot  of  mortals,  alw»vg 
floating  on  the  ocean  of  human  opinions,  without  compass  or  rud- 
der ;  left  to  the  mercy  of  their  tempestuous  passions,  with  no 
other  guide  than  an  unexperienced  pilot  ignorant  of  his  course, 
as  well  as  whence  he  came  and  whither  he  is  going.  I  said  often 
to  myself;  I  love  the  truth  ;  I  seek,  yet  cannot  find  it ;  let  any 
one  show  it  me  and  I  will  readily  embrace  it ;  Why  doth  it  hide 
its  charms  from  an  heart  formed  to  adore  them  ? 

I  have  frequently  experienced  at  times  much  greater  evils  ; 
and  yet  no  part  of  my  life  was  ever  so  constantly  disagreeable  to 
me  as  that  interval  of  scruples  and  anxiety.  Running  perpetual- 
ly from  one  doubt  and  uncertainty  to  another,  all  that  I  could  de- 
duce from  any  long  and  painful  meditation  was  incertitude,  ob- 
scurity and  contradiction  ;  as  well  with  regard  to  my  existence 
as  my  duty. 

What  added  further  to  my  perplexity  was,  that  being  educated 
in  a  church  whose  authority  being  universally  decisive,  admits 
not  of  the  least  doubt  ;  in  rejecting  one  point,  I  rejected  in  a 
manner  all  the  rest  ;  and  the  impossibility  of  admitting  so  many 
absurd  decisions,  set  me  against  those  which  were  not  so.  In 
being  told  I  must  believe  all,  I  was  prevented  from  believing 
any  thing,  and  I  knew  not  where  to  stop. 

We  have  no  standard  with  which  to-  measure  this  immense 
machine  ;  we  cannot  calculate  its  various  relations  ;  we  neither 
know  the  first  cause  nor  the  final  effects  ;  we  are  ignorant  even 
of  ourselves  ;  we  neither  know  our  own  nature  nor  principle  of 

*This  is  the  manner  in  which  all  priests,  or  ministers  of  the  gospel,  are  made  ;  and 
when  so  made,  they  become  in  the  eyes  of  their  followers,  pious,  holy  men,  capable  of 
explaining  the  whole  "  mystery  of  godliness."  En. 


360  A  SAVOYARD    VICAR. 

action  ;  nay,  we  hardly  know  whether  man  be  a  simple  or  a  com- 
pound being  ;  impenetrable  mysteries  surround  us  on  every 
side  ;  they  extend  beyond  the  region  of  sense  :  we  imagine  our- 
selves possessed  of  understanding  to  penetrate  them,  and  we 
have  only  imagination.  Every  one  strikes  out  a  way  of  his  own 
across  this  imaginary  world  ;Hbut  no  one  knows  whether  it  will 
lead  him  to  the  point  he  aims  at.  We  are  yet  desirous  to  pene- 
trate, to  know  every  thing.  The  only  thing  we  know  not,  is  to 
remain  ignorant  of  what  it  is  impossible  fbr  us  to  know.  We 
had  much  rather  determine  at  random,  and  believe  the  thing 
which  is  not,  than  confess  that  none  of  us  is  capable  of  seeing 
the  thing  that  is.  Being  ourselves  but  a  small  part  of  that  great 
whole,  whose  limits  surpass  our  most  extensive  views,  and  con* 
cerning  which  its  Creator  leaves  us  to  make  our  idle  conjectures, 
we  are  vain  enough  to  decide  what  is  that  whole  in  itself,  and 
what  we  are  in  relation  to  it. 

Taking  a  retrospect,  then,  of  the  several  opinions,  which  had 
successively  prevailed  with  me,  from  my  infancy,  I  found  that, 
although  none  of  them  were  so  evident  as  to  produce  immediate 
conviction,  they  had  nevertheless  different  degress  of  probabil- 
ity, and  that  my  innate  sense  of  truth  and  falsehood,  leaned 
more  or  less  to  each.  On  this  first  observation,  proceeding  to 
compare,  impartially  and  without  prejudice,  these  different  opin- 
ions with  each  other,  I  found  that  the  first  and  most  common, 
was  also  the  most  simple  and  most  rational  ;  and  that  it  wanted 
nothing  more,  to  secure  universal  suffrage,  than  the  circumstance 
of  having  been  last  proposed. 

The  love  of  truth,  therefore,  being  all  my  philosophy,  and  my 
method  of  philosophizing  the  simple  and  easy  rule  of  common 
sense,  which  dispensed  with  the  vain  subtilty  of  argumentation, 
I  re-examined,  by  this  rule,  all  the  interesting  knowledge  I  was 
possessed  of;  resolved  to  admit,  as  evident,  every  thing  to  which 
I  could  not,  in  the  sincerity  of  my  heart,  refuse  my  assent ;  to 
admit  also,  as  true,  all  that  appeared  to  have  a  necessary  connec- 
tion with  the  former,  and  to  leave  every  thing  else  as  uncertain, 
without  rejecting  or  admitting  it,  determined  not  to  trouble  my- 
self about  clearing  up  any  point  which  did  not  tend  to  utility  in 
practice. 

But,  after  all,  who  am  J  ?  What  right  have  I  to  judge  of 
these  things  ?  And  what  is  it  that  determines  my  conclusions  ? 
If,  subject  to  'the  impressions  I  receive,  these  are  formed  in  di- 
rect consequence  of  those  impressions,  I  trouble  myself  to  no 
purpose  in  these  investigations.  It  is  necessary,  therefore,  to 
examine  myself,  to  know  what  instruments  are  made  use  of  in 
such  researches,  and  how  far  I  may  confide  in  their  use. 

[The  vicar  here  goes  into  a  long  disquisition  upon  matter, 
cause  of  motion,  spirit,  freedom  of  the  human  will,  &c.  ;  which 
is  omitted.] 


a.    SAVOYARD    VICAR.  361 

I  have  done  every  thing  in  my  power  to  arrive  at  truth  ;  but 
its  force  is  elevated  beyond  my  reach.  If  my  faculties  fail  me, 
in  what  am  I  culpable  ?  It  is  necessary  for  truth  to  stoop  to  my 
capacity. 

The  good  priest  spoke  with  some  earnestness  :  he  was  moved, 
and  I  was  also  greatly  affected.  I  amagined  myself  attending  to  the 
divine  Orpheus,  singing  his  hymns,  nnd  teaching  mankind  the 
worship  of  the  gods.  A  number  of  objections,  however,  to  what 
he  had  said  suggested  themselves ;  though  I  did  not  urge  one, 
because  they  were  less  solid  than  perplexing  ;  and  though  not 
convinced,  I  was  nevertheless  persuaded  he  was  in  the  right. 
In  proportion  as  he  spoke  to  me  from  the  conviction  of  his  own 
conscience,  mine  confirmed  me  in  the  truth  of  what  he  said. 

The  sentiments  you  have  been  delivering,  said  I  to  him,  ap- 
pear newer  to  me  in  what  you  profess  yourself  ignorant  of,  than 
in  what  you  profess  to  believe.  I  see  in  the  latter  nearly  that 
theism,  or  natural  religion,  which  Christians  affect  to  confound 
with  atheism  and  impiety,  though  in  fact  diametrically  opposite. 
In  the  present  situation  of  my  mind,  I  find  it  difficult  to  adopt 
precisely  your  opinion,  to  be  as  wise  as  you  ;  to  be  at  least,  as 
sincere,  however,  I  will  consult  my  own  conscience  on  these 
points.  Is  it  not  that  internal  sentiment  which,  according  to 
your  example,  ought  to  be  my  conductor  ;  and  you  have  your- 
self taught  me,  that,  after  having  imposed  silence  on  it  for  a  long 
time,  it  is  not  to  be  awakened  again  in  a  moment. 

I  will  treasure  up  your  discourse  in  my  heart,  and  meditate 
thereon.  If  when  I  have  duly  weighed  it,  I  am  as  much  con- 
vinced as  you,  I  will  trust  you  as  my  apostle,  and  will  be  your 
proselyte  till  death.  Go  on,  however,  to  instruct  me  :  you  have 
only  informed  me  of  half  what  I  ought  to  know.  Give  me  your 
thoughts  of  revelation,  the  scriptures,  and  those  mysterious  doc- 
trines, concerning  which  I  have  been  in  the  dark  from  my  infan- 
cy, without  being  able  to  conceive  or  believe  them,  and  yet  not 
knowing  how  either  to  admit  or  reject  them. 

Yes,  my  dear  child,  said  he,  I  will  proceed  to  tell  you  what  I 
think  farther  :  I  meant  not  to  open  to  you  my  heart  by  halves  ; 
but  the  desire  which  you  express  to  be  informed  in  these  partic- 
ulars was  necessary  to  authorize  me  to  be  totally  without  reserve. 
I  have  hitherto  told  you  nothing  but  what  I  thought  might  be 
useful  to  you,  and  in  the  truth  of  which  I  am  most  firmly  per- 
suaded. The  examination  which  I  am  now  going  to  make,  is 
very  different  ;  presenting  to  my  view  nothing  but  perplexity, 
mysteriousness,  and  obscurity  :  I  enter  on  it,  therefore,  with  dis- 
trust and  uncertainty.  I  almost  tremble  to  determine  about  any 
thing  ;  and  shall  rather  inform  you,  therefore,  of  my  doubts  than 
of  my  opinions.  Were  your  own  sentiments  more  confirmed,  I 
should  hesitate  to  acquaint  you  with  mine  ;  but  in  your  present 
sceptical  situation,  you  would  be  a  gainer  by  thinking  as  I  do. 


362  PROFESSION   OF   FAITH   OF 

Let  my  discourse,  however,  carry  with  it  no  greater  authority 
than  of  reason  ;  for  J  plainly  confess  myself  ignorant,  whether 
I  am  in  the  right  or  wrong.  It  is  difficult  indeed,  in  all  discus- 
sions, not  to  assume  sometimes  an  affirmative  tone  :  but  remem- 
ber that  all  my  affirmations,  in  treating  these  matters,  are  only 
so  many  rational  doubts.  I  leave  you  to  investigate  the  truth  of 
them  ;  on  my  part,  I  can  only  promise  to  be  sincere. 

You  will  find  my  exposition  treat  of  nothing  more  than  natural 
religion  ;  it  is  very  strange  that  we  should  stand  in  need  of  any 
other  !  By  what  means  can  I  find  out  such  necessity  ?  In  what 
respect  can  I  be  culpable,  for  serving  God  agreeably  to  the  dic- 
tates of  the  understanding  he  hath  given  me, — and  the  sentiments 
he  hath  implanted  in  my  heart  ?  What  purity  of  morals, — what 
system  of  faith  useful  to  man, — or  honorable  to  the  Creator,  can 
I  deduce  from  any  positive  doctrines,  that  I  cannot  deduce  as 
well  without  it?  from  a  good  use  of  my  natural  faculties  ?  Let 
any  one  show  me  what  can  be  added,  either  for  the  glory  of  God, 
the  good  of  society,  or  my  own  advantage,  to  the  obligations  we 
are  laid  under  by  nature  ;  let  him  show  me  what  virtue  can  be 
produced  from  any  new  worship,  which  is  not  also  the  conse- 
quence of  mine.  The  most  sublime  ideas  of  the  Deity  are  in- 
culcated by  reason  alone.  Take  a  view  of  the  works  of  nature, 
listen  to  the  voice  within,  and  then  tell  me  what  God  hath  omit- 
ted to  say  to  your  sight,  your  conscience,  your  understanding  ? 
Where  are  the  men  who  can  tell  us  more  of  him  than  he  thus  tells 
us  of  himself  ?  Their  revelations  only  debase  the  Deity,  in  as- 
cribing to  him  human  passions.  So  far  from  giving  us  enlight- 
ened notions  of  the  supreme  Being,  their  particular  tenets,  in  my 
opinion,  give  us  the  most  obscure  and  confused  ideas.  To  the 
inconceivable  mysteries  by  which  the  Deity  is  hid  from  our  view, 
they  add  the  most  absurd  contradictions.  They  serve  to  make 
man  proud,  persecuting,  and  cruel  :  instead  of  establishing  peace 
on  earth,  they  bring  fire  and  sword.  I  ask  myself  to  what  good 
purpose  tends  all  this,  without  being  able  to  resolve  the  question. 
Artificial  religion  presents  to  my  view  only  the  wickedness  and 
miseries  of  mankind. 

I  am  told,  indeed,  that  revelation  is  necessary  to  teach  man- 
kind the  manner  in  which  God  would  be  served  ;  as  a  proof  of 
this,  they  bring  the  diversity  of  whimsical  modes  of  worship 
which  prevail  in  the  world  ;  and  that  without  remarking  that  this 
very  diversity  arises  from  the  whim  of  adopting  revelations. — 
Ever  since  men  have  taken  it  into  their  heads  to  make  the  Deity 
speak,  every  people  make  him  speak,  in  their  own  way  and  say 
what  they  like  best.  Had  they  listened  only  to  what  the  Deity 
hath  said  to  their  hearts,  there  would  have  been  but  one  religion 
on  earth. 

It  is  necessary  that  the  worship  of  God  should  be  uniform  ; 
JL  would  have  it  so.  But  is  this  a  point  so  very  important,  that 


A   SAVOYARD    VICAR.  363 


the  \Vhnle  apparatus  of  divine  power  was  necessary  to  establish 
it  ?     Let  us  not  confound  the  ceremonials  of  religion  with  reli- 
ligion  itself.     The  worship  of  God  demands  that  of  the  heart ;     } 
and  this  when  it  is  sincere,  is  ever  uniform. 

Men  must  entertain  very  ridiculous  notions  of  the  Deity,  in- 
deed, if  they  imagine  he  can  interest  himself  in  the  gown  or  cas- 
sock of  a  priest,  in  the  order  of  words  he  pronounces,  or  in  the 
gestures  and  genuflections  he  makes  at  the  altar. 

I  did  not  set  out  at  first  with  these  reflections.  Hurried  on  by 
the  prejudices  of  education,  and  that  dangerous  self-conceit, 
which  ever  elates  mankind  above  their  sphere,  as  I  could  not 
raise  my  feeble  conceptions  to  the  supreme  Being,  I  endeavoured 
to  debase  him  to  my  ideas.  Thus  I  connected  relations  infinitely 
distant  from  each  other,  comparing  the  incomprehensible  nature 
of  the  Deity  with  my  own.  I  require  still  farther  a  more  imme- 
diate communication  with  the  Divinity,  and  more  particular  in- 
structions concerning  his  will :  not  content  with  reducing  God 
to  a  similitude  with  man,  I  wanted  to  be  farther  distinguished  by 
his  favour,  and  to  enjoy  supernatural  lights  :  I  longed  for  an  ex- 
clusive and  peculiar  privilege  of  adoration,  and  that  God  should 
have  revealed  to  me  what  he  had  kept  secret  from  others,  or 
that  others  should  not  understand  his  revelations  so  well  as  my- 
self. 

Looking  on  the  point  at  which  I  was  arrived,  as  that  whence 
all  believers  set  out,  in  order  to  reach  an  enlightened  mode  of 
worship,  I  regarded  natural  religion  only  as  the  elements  of  all 
religion.  I  took  a  survey  of  that  variety  of  sects  which  are 
scattered  over  the  face  of  the  earth,  and  who  mutually  accuse 
each  other  of  falsehood  and  error  :  I  asked  which  of  them  was 
in  the  right  ?  Every  one  of  them  in  their  turns  answered  theirs. 
I  and  my  partizans  only  think  truly  ;  all  the  rest  are  mistaken. 
But  how  do  you  know  that  your  sect  is  in  the  riglit  ?  Because  God 
hath  declared  so.  And  who  tells  you  God  hath  declared  so  ?  My 
spiritual  guide,  who  knows  it  well.  My  pastor  tolls  me  to  believe 
so  and  so,  and  accordingly  I  believe  it :  he  assures  me  that  ev- 
eiy  one  whc  says  to  the  contrary,  speaks  falsely  ;  and  therefore^ 
I  listen  to  nobody  who  controverts  his  doctrine.* 

*  "All  of  them,"  says  a  good,  and  learned  priest,  "do  in  effect  assume  to  them- 
selves that  declaration  of  the  apostle,  not  of  men,  neither  by  man^nor  of  any  oth- 
er creature,  but  of  God."  .Gal.  i.  1,  12. 

"  But  if  we  lay  aside  all  flattery  and  disguise,  and  speak  freely  to  the  point,  there 
will  be  found  very  little  or  nothing"  at  the  bottom  of  all  these  mighty  boastings.  For, 
whatever  man  may  say  or  think  to  the  contrary,  it  is  manifest  that  all  sorts  of  reli- 
gion are  handed  down  and  received  by  human  methods.-— -This  seems  to  be  sufficiently 
plain  ;  first,  from  the  manner  of  religion's  getting  ground  in  the  world ;  and  that 
whether  we  regard  the  first  general  planting  of  any  persuasion,  or  the  method  of  its 
gaining  now  upon  private  persons.  For  whence  is  the  daily  increase  of  any  sect  1 
Does  not  the  nation  to  which  we  belong,  the  country  where  we  dwell,  nay,  the  town, 
or  the  family  In  which  we  were  born,  commonly  give  us.  our  religion ;  we  take  that 
which  is  the  growth  of  the  soil ;  and  whatever  we  were  born  in  the  midst, of,  and  bred,, 
up  to,  that  profession  we  still  keep.  We  are  circumcised  or  baptized,,  Jews  or.  Chris- 


364  PROFESSION    OF    FAITH    OF 

How,  thought  I,  is  not  the  truth  every  where  the  same?  Is  it 
possible  that  what  is  true  with  one  person  can  be  false  with  an- 
other? If  the  method  taken  by  him  who  is  in  the  right,  and  by 
him  who  is  in  the  wrong  be  the  same,  what  merit  or  demerit  hath 
the  one  more  than  the  other?  Their  choice  is  the  effect  of  ac- 
cident-, and  to  impute  it  to  them  is  unjust  :  It  is  to  reward  or  puu- 
ish  them  for  being  born  in  this  or  that  country.  To  say  that  the 
Deity  can  judge  us  in  this  manner,  is  the  highest  impeachment 
v/bf  his  justice. 

Now,  either  all  religions  are  good  and  agreeable  to  God,  or  if 
there  be  one  which  he  dictated  to  man,  and  will  punish  him  for 
rejecting,  he  hath  certainly  distinguished  it  by  manifest  signs  and 
tokens,  as  the  only  true  one.  These  signs  are  common  to  all 
times  and  places,  and  are  equally  obvious  to  all  mankind,  to  the 
young  and  old,  the  learned  and  ignorant,  to  Europeans,  Indians, 
Africans  and  savages.  If  there  be  only  one  religion  in  the 
world  that  can  prevent  our  suffering  eternal  damnation,  and  there 
be  on  any  part  of  the  earth  a  single  mortal  who  is  sincere  and  is 
not  convinced  by  its  evidence,  the  God  of  that  religion  must  be 
the  most  iniquitous  and  cruel  of  tyrants.  Would  we  seek  the 
truth,  therefore,  in  sincerity,  we  must  lay  no  stress  on  the  place 
and  circumstance  of  our  birth,  nor  on  the  authority  of  fathers  and 
teachers ;  but  appeal  to  the  dictates  of  reason  and  conscience 
concerning  every  thing  that  is  taught  us  in  our  youth.  It  is  to 
no  purpose  to  bid  me  subject  my  reason  to  the  truth  of  things 
wh'ich  it  is  incapacitated  to  judge  ;  the  man  who  would  im- 
pose on  me  a  falsehood,  may  bid  me  do  the  same  :  it  is  necessa- 
ry, therefore,  I  should  employ  my  reason  even  to  know  when  it 
ought  to  submit. 

All  the  theology  I  am  myself  capable  of  acquiring,  by  taking 
a  prospect  of  the  universe,  and  by  the  proper  use  of  my  facul- 
ties, is  confined  to  what  I  have  laid  down  above.  To  know  more, 
we  must  have  recourse  to  extraordinary  means.  These  means 
cannot  depend  on  the  authority  of  men  :  for  all  men  being  of  the 
same  species  with  myself,  whatever  another  can  by  natural 
means  come  to  the  knowledge  of,  I  can  do  the  same  ;  and  an- 
other man  is  as  liable  to  be  deceived  as  I  am :  and  if  I  believe, 
therefore,  what  he  says,  it  is  not  because  he  says  it,  but  because 
he  proves  it.  The  testimony  of  mankind,  therefore,  >s  at  the 

tians,  or  Mahometans,  before  we  can  be  sensible  that  we  are  men ;  so  that  religion  is 
not  the  generality  of  people's  choice,  but  their  fate  ;  not  so  much  their  own  act  and 
deed,  as  the  act  of  others  for  and  upon  them. — Were  religion  our  own  free  choice, 
and  the  result  of  our  own  judgment,  the  life  and  manners  of  men  could  not  be  at  BO 
vast  a  distance  and  manifest  disagreement  from  their  principles  ;  nor  could  they,  up- 
on every  slight  and  common  occasion,  act  so  directly  contrary  to  the  whole  tenor  and 
design  of  their  religion."  Charron  of  Wisdom,  book  ii.  chap.  5.  The  English 
translator  observes,  that  the  foregoing  passage  is  taken  from  Dr.  Stanhope's  transla- 
tion of  Charron.  See  the  Doctor's  excellent  note  on  that  passage,  vol.  2,  page  110. 

It  is  very  probable,  that  the  sincere  profession  of  faith  of  the  virtuous  theologian 
of  Condom,  was  not  very  different  from  that  of  the  vicar  of  Savoy. 


A    SAVOYARD    VlCAH.  365 

bottom  of  that  of  my  reason,  and  adds  nothing  to  the  natural 
means  God  hath  given  me  for  the  discovery  of  the  truth. 

What  then  can  even  the  apostle  of  truth  have  to  tell  me,  of 
which  I  am  not  still  to  judge  ?  But  God  himself  huth  spoken  : 
listen  to  the  voice  of  revelation.  That  indeed,  is  another  thing. 
God  hath  spoken  1  This  is  saying  a  great  deal ;  but  to  whom 
hath  he  spoken  ?  He  hath  spoken  to  man.  How  comes  it  then 
that  I  heard  nothing  of  it  ?  He  Jiath  appointed  others  to  teach  you 
his  word.  I  understand  you :  there  are  certain  men  who  are  to 
tell  me  what  God  hath  said.  I  had  much  rather  have  heard  it 
from  himself;  this,  had  he  so  pleased,  he  could  easily  have  done  ; 
and  I  should  then  have  run  no  risk  of  deception.  Will  it  be 
said  I  am  secured  from  that,  by  his  manifesting  the  mission  of 
his  messengers  by  miracle  ?  Where  are  those  miracles  to  be 
seen  ?  Are  they  related  only  in  the  books  ?  P*ay,  who  wrote 
these  books  ? — Men. — Who  were  witnesses  to  these  miracles  ?  • 
Men. — Always  human  testimony  !  It  is  always  men  that  tell  me 
what  other  men  have  told  them.  What  a  number  of  these  are  con- 
stantly between  me  and  the  Deity  !  We  are  always  reduced  to 
the  necessity  of  examining,  comparing  and  verifying  such  evi- 
dence. 0,  that  God  had  deigned  to  have  saved  me  all  this 
trouble  !  should  I  have  served  him  with  a  less  willing  heart  ? 

Consider,  my  friend,  in  what  a  terrible  discussion!  am  already 
engaged  ,•  what  immense  erudition  I  stand  in  need  of,  to  recur 
back  to  the  earliest  antiquity  ;  to  examine,  to  weigh,  to  confront 
prophecies,  revelations,  facts,  with  all  the  monuments  of  faith 
that  have  made  their  appearance  in  all  the  countries  of  the  world  ; 
to  asertain  their  time,  place,  authors,  and  occasions.  How  great 
the  critical  sagacity  which  is  requisite  to  enable  me  to  distinguish 
between  pieces  that  are  suppositions,  and  those  which  are  authen- 
tic ;  to  compare  objections  with  their  replies,  translations  with 
their  originals  ;  to  judge  of  the  impartiality  of  witnesses,  of  their 
good  sense,  of  their  capacity  ;  to  know  if  nothing  be  suppressed 
or  added  to  their  testimony,  if  nothing  be  changed,  transposed  or 
falsified  ;  to  obviate  the  contradiction  that  remain,  to  judge  what 
weight  we  ought  to  ascribe  to  the  silence  of  our  opponents,  in  re- 
gard to  facts  alledged  against  them  ;  to  discover  whether  such 
allegations  were  known  to  them  ;  whether  they  did  not  disdain 
them  too  much  to  make  any  reply  ;  whether  books  were  common 
enough  for  ours  to  reach  them  ;  or  if  we  were  honest  enough  to 
let  them  have  a  free  circulation  among  us  ;  and  to  leave  their 
strongest  objections  in  full  force. 

Again,  supposing  all  these  monuments  ackowledged  to  be  in- 
contestible,  we  must  proceed  to  examine  the  proofs  of  the  mission 
of  their  authors  :  it  would  be  necessary  for  us  to  be  perfectly  ac 
quainted  with  the  laws  of  chance,  and  the  doctrine  of  probabili- 
ties, to  judge  what  prediction  could  not  be  accomplished  without 
a  miracle  j  to  know  the  genius  of  the  original  languages,  in  or- 
31* 


366  PROFESSION    OP    FAITH    OF 

der  to  distinguish  what  is  predictive  in  these  languages,  and 
what  is  only  figurative.  It  would  be  requisite  for  us  to  know 
what  facts  are  agreeable  to  the  established  order  of  nature  and 
what  are  not  so  ;  to  be  able  to  say  how  far  an  artful  man  may 
not  fascinate  the  eyes  of  the  simple,  and  even  astonish  the  most 
enlightened  spectators  ;  to  know  of  what  kind  a  miracle  should 
be,  and  the  authenticity  it  ought  to  bear,  not  only  to  claim  our 
belief,  but  to  make  it  criminal  to  doubt  it  ;  to  compare  the  proofs 
of  false  and  true  miracles,  and  discover  the  certain  means  of  dis- 
tinguishing them  ;  and  after  all  to  tell  why  the  Deity  should 
choose,  in  order  to  confirm  the  truth  of  his  word,  to  make  use  of 
means  which  themselves  require  so  much  confirmation,  as  if  he 
took  delight  in  playing  upon  the  credulity  of  mankind,  and  had 
purposely  avoided  the  direct  means  to  pursuade  them. 

Suppose  that  the  divine  Majesty  had  really  condescended  to 
make  man  the  organ  of  promulgating  its  sacred  will ;  is  it  reason- 
able, is  it  just,  to  require  all  mankind  to  obey  the  voice  of  such 
a  minister,  without  his  making  himself  known  to  be  such  ?  Where 
is  the  equity  or  propriety  in  furnishing  him,  for  universal  cre- 
dentials, with  only  a  few  particular  tokens  displayed  before  a 
handful  of  obscure  persons,  and  of  which  the  rest  of  mankind 
kno-.v  nothing  but  by  hearsay  ?  In  every  country  in  the  world, 
if  we  should  believe  all  the  prodigies  to  be  true  which  the  com- 
mon people,  and  the  ignorant,  affirm  to  have  seen,  every  sect 
would  be  in  the  right,  there  would  be  more  miraculous  events  than 
natural  ones  ;  and  the  greatest  miracle  of  all  would  be  to  find 
that  no  miracles  had  happened  where  fanaticism  had  been  per- 
secuted. The  supreme  Being  is  best  displayed  by  the  fixed  and 
unalterable  order  of  nature  ;  if  there  should  happen  many  ex- 
ceptions to  such  general  laws,  I  should  no  longer  know  what  to 
think  ;  and,  for  my  own  part,  I  must  confess  I  believe  too  much 
in  God  to  believe  so  many  miracles  so  little  worthy  of  him. 

What  if  a  man  should  come  and  harangue  us  in  the  following 
manner  :  "  I  come,  ye  mortals,  to  announce  to  you  the  will  of 
the  most  high  ;  acknowledge  in  my  voice  that  of  him  who  sent 
me.  I  command  the  sun  to  move  backwards,  the  stars  to  change 
their  places,  the  mountains  to  disappear,  the  waves  to  remain  fixed 
on  high,  and  the  earth  to  wear  a  different  aspect."  Who  would 
not,  at  the  sight  of  such  miracles,  immediately  attribute  them  to 
the  author  of  nature  ?  Nature  is  not  obedient  to  impostors  ; 
their  miracles  are  always  performed  in  the  highways,  in  the 
fields,  or  in  apartments  where  they  are  displayed  before  a  small 
number  of  spectators,  previously  disposed  to  believe  every  thing 
they  see.  Who  is  there  will  venture  to  determine  how  many  eye 
witnesses  are  necessary  to  render  a  miracle  worthy  of  credit  ? 
If  the  miracles  intended  to*  prove  the  truth  of  your  doctrine, 
stand  themselves  in  need  of  proof,  of  what  use  are  they  ?  There 
might  as  well  be  none  performed  at  all. 


A  SAVOYARD  VICAR.  Go 7 


The  most  important  examination,  after  all,  remains  to  be  made 
into  the  truth  of  the  doctrines  delivered  ;  for  as  those  who  say 
that  God  is  pleased  to  work  these  miracles,  pretend  that  the  devil 
sometimes  imitates  them,  we  are  not  a  jot  nearer  than  before, 
though  such  miracles  should  be  ever  so  well  attested.  As  the 
magicians  of  Pharaoh  worked  the  same  miracles,  even  in  the 
presence  of  Moses,  as  he  himself  performed  by  the  express  com- 
mand of  God,  why  might  not  they,  in  his  absence,  from  the  same 
proofs,  pretend  to  the  same  authority  ?  Thus  after  proving  the 
truth  of  the  doctrine  by  the  miracle,  you  are  reduced  to  prove 
the  truth  of  the  miracle  by  that  of  the  doctrine,*  lest  the  works 
of  the  devil  should  be  mistaken  for  those  of  the  Lord.  What 
think  you  of  this  alternative  ? 

The  doctrines  coming  from  God,  ought  to  bear  the  sacred 
characters  of  the  divinity  ;  and  should  not  only  clear  up  th^sc 
confused  ideas  which  enlightened  reason  excites  in  the  mind  ; 
but  should  also  furnish  us  with  a  system  of  religion  and  morals, 
agreeably  to  those  attributes  by  which  only  we  form  a  concep- 
tion of  his  essence.  If  then  they  teach  us  only  absurdities,  if 
they  inspire  us  with  sentiments  of  aversion  for  our  fellow  crea- 
tures, and  fear  for  ourselves  ;  if  they  describe  the  Deity  as  a 
vindictive,  partial,  jealous  and  angry  being  ;  as  a  god  of  war 
and  battles,  always  ready  to  thunder  and  destroy  :  always  threat- 
ening slaughter  and  revenge,  and  even  boasting  of  punishing  the 
innocent,  my  heart  cannot  be  incited  to  love  such  a  Deity,  and  I 
shall  take  care  how  I  give  up  my  natural  religion  to  embrace 
such  doctrines.  Your  God  is  not  mine,  I  should  say  to  profes- 
sors of  such  a  religion.  A  being,  who  began  his  dispensations 
with  partially  selecting  one  people,  and  proscribing  the  rest  of 
mankind,  is  not  the  common  father  of  the  human  race  ;  a  being, 
who  destines  to  eternal  punishment  the  greatest  part  of  his  crea- 
tures, is  not  the  good  and  merciful  God  who  is  pointed  out  by 
my  reason. 

*  This  is  expressly  mentioned  in  many  places  in  scripture,  particularly  in  Deuter- 
onomy, chap.  xiii.  where  it  is  said,  that,  if  a  prophet,  teaching  the  worship  of  strange 
gods,  confirm  his  discourse  by  signs  and  wonders,  and  what  he  foretells  comes  really 
to  pass,  so  far  from  paying  any  regard  to  his  mission,  the  people  should  stone  him  to 
death.  When  the  Pagans,  therefore,  put  the  apostles  to  death,  for  preaching  tip  to 
them  the  worship  of  a  strange  God,  proving  their  divine  mission  by  prophecies  and 
miracles,  I  see  not  what  could  be  objected  to  them,  which  they  might  not  with  equal 
justice  have  retorted  upon  us.  Now,  what  is  to  be  done  in  this  case  1  there  is  but  one 
htep  to  be  taken,  to  recur  to  reason,  and  leave  miracles  to  themselves  :  bettor  indeed 
had  it  been  never  to  have  had  recourse  to  them,  nor  to  have  perplexed  good  sense 
with  such  a  number  of  subtile  distinction?.  What  do  I  talk  of  subtile  distinctions  in 
Christidirity  !  if  there  are  such,  our  Saviour  was  in  the  wrong  surely  to  promise  the 
kingdom  of  heaven  to  the  weak  and  simple  !  how  came  he  to  begin  his  fine  discourse 
en  the  mount,  with  blessing  the  poor  in  spirit,  if  it  requires  so  much  ingenuity  to  com- 
j:i'!'h.  MI  1  an-l  believe  his  doctrines  '\  when  you  prove  that  I  ought  to  subject  my  reason 
t.i  his  dictates,  it  u  very  well ;  but  to  prove  that,  you  must  render  them  intelligible  to 
iiiv  i'u  ierstahding  ;  you  imi^t  adapt  your  arguments  to  the  poverty  of  my  genius,  or  I 
fha!!  nut  acknowledge  you  to  be  the  true  disciple  of  your  master,  or  think  it  is  hid 
ujcuiucs  which  vou  u't/uld  inculcate. 


368  PROFESSION    OF    FAITH    OF 

With  regard  to  articles  of  faith,  my  reason  tells  me,  they 
should  be  clear,  perspicuous,  and  evident.  If  natural  religion 
be  insufficient,  it  is  owing  to  the'  obscurity  in  which  it  necessa- 
rily leaves  those  sublime  truths  it  professes  to  teach  ;  it  is  the 
business  of  revelation  to  exhibit  them  to  the  mind  in  a  more  clear 
and  sensible  manner  ;  to  adapt  them  to  his  understanding,  and 
to  enable  him  to  conceive,  in  order  that  he  may  be  capable  of 
believing  them.  x^True  faith  is  assured  and  confirmed  by  the 
understanding  ;  the  best  of  all  religions  is  undoubtedly  the  clear- 
est :  that  which  is  clouded  with  mysteries  and  contradictions,  the 
worship  that  is  to  be  taught  by  preaching,  teaches  me  by  that 
very  circumstance  to  distrust  it.  The  God  whom  I  adore  is  not 
the  God  of  darkness  ;  he  hath  not  given  me  an  understanding  to 
forbid  me  the  use  of  it.  To  bid  me  give  up  my  reason  is  tc 
insult  the  author  of  it.  The  minister  of  truth  doth  not  tyrannise 
ove%  my  understanding,  he  enlightens  it. 

We  have  set  aside  all  human  authority,  and  without  it  I  can- 
not see  how  one  man  can  convince  another,  by  preaching  to  hm: 
an  unreasonable  doctrine.  Let  us  suppose  two  persons  engaged 
in  a  dispute  on  this  head,  arid  see  how  they  will  express  them- 
selves in  the  language  generally  made  use  of  on  such  occasions. 

DOGMATIST. — Your  reason  tells  you  that  the  whole  is  greater 
than  part  ;  but  I  tell  you,  from  God,  that  a  part  is  greater  than 
the  whole. 

RATIONALIST. — And  who  are  you,  that  dare  to  tell  me  God 
contradicts  himself  ?  In  whom  shall  I  rather  believe  ?  In  himy 
who  instructs  me,  by  means  of  reason,  in  the  knowledge  of  eter- 
nal truths  ;  or  in  you  who  would  impose  on  me,  in  his  name,  the 
greatest  absurdity  ? 

D. — In  me,  for  my  instructions  are  more  positive  j  and  I  will 
prove  to  you  incontestibly,  that  he  hath  sent  me. 

R. — How  !  will  you  prove  that  God  hath  sent  you  to  depose 
against  himself  ?  What  sort  of  proofs  can  you  bring  to  convince 
me,  is  it  more  certain  that  God  speaks  by  your  mouth  than  by 
the  understanding  he  hath  given  me  ? 

D. — The  understanding  he  hath  given  you  !  ridiculous  and 
contemptible  man  !  you  talk  as  if  you  were  the  first  infidel  who 
ever  was  misled  by  an  understanding  depraved  by  sin. 

R. — Nor  may  you,  man  of  God  !  be  the  first  knave  whose 
impudence  hath  been  the  only  proof  he  could  give  of  his  divine 
mission. 

D. — How  !  can  philosophers  be  thus  abusive  ? 

R. — Sometimes,  when  saints  set  them  the  example. 

D  — Oh  !  but  I  am  authorised  to  abuse  you,  I  speak  on  the 
part  of  God  Almighty. 

R. — It  would  not  be  improper,  however,  to  produce  your  cre- 
dentials before  you  assume  your  privileges. 


A  SAVOYARD  VICA'R.  369 


D. — My  credentials  are  sufficiently  authenticated.  Both  hea- 
ven and  earth  are  witnesses  in  my  favour.  Attend,  I  pray  you, 
to  my  arguments. 

R. — Arguments  !  why  you  do  not  surely  pretend  to  any  !  to 
tell  me  that  my  reason  is  fallacious,  is  to  refute  whatever  it  may 
say  in  your  favour.  Whoever  refuses  to  abide  by  the  dictates  \/' 
of  reason,  ought  to  be  able  to  convince  without  making  use  of 
it.  For  supposing  that  in  the  course  of  your  arguments  you 
convince  me,  how  shall  I  know  whether  it  be  not  through  the 
fallacy  of  reason,  depraved  by  sin,  and  I  acquiesce  in  what  you 
affirm  ?  Besides,  what  proof,  what  demonstration  can  you  ever 
employ  more  evident  than  the  axiom  which  destroys  it  ?  it  is  full 
as  credible  that  a  just  syllogism  should  be  false,  as  that  a  part  is 
greater  than  the  whoJe. 

D. — What  a  difference  !  my  proofs  admit  of  no  reply  ;  they 
are  of  a  supernatural  kind. 

R. — Supernatural  !  What  is  the  meaning  of  that  term  ?  I  do 
not  understand  it. 

D. — Contraventions  of  the  order  of  nature,  prophecies,  mira- 
cles and  prodigies  of  every  kind. 

R.' — Prodigies  and  miracles  !  I  have  never  seen  any  of  these 
things. 

D. — No  matter ;  others  have  seen  them  for  you  ;  we  can 
bring  clouds  of  witnesses — the  testimony  of  whole  nations. 

R. — The  testimony  of  what  nations  !  Is  this  a  proof  of  the 
supernatural  kind  ? 

D. — No.     But  when  it  is  unanimous,  it  is  incontestible. 

R. — There  is  nothing  more  incontestible  than  the  dictates  of 
reason  ;  nor  can  the  testimony  of  all  mankind  prove  the  truth  of 
an  absurdity.  Let  us  see  some  of  your  supernatural  proofs 
then,  as  the  attestation  of  men  is  not  so. 

D. — Infidel  wretch  !  It  is  plain  the  grace  of  God  doth  not 
speak  to  thy  understanding. 

R. — Whose  fault  is  that  ?  not  mine  ;  for  according  to  you, 
it  is  necessary  to  be  enlightened  by  grace  to  know  how  to  ask  for 
it.  Begin  then,  and  speak  to  me  in  its  stead. 

D. — Is  not  this  what  I  am  doing  ?  but  you  will  not  hear  me  : 
what  do  you  say  to  prophecies  ? 

R. — As  to  prophecies  ;  I  say,  in  the  first  place,  I  have  heard 
as  few  of  them  as  I  have  seen  miracles.  And  in  the  second,  I 
say  that  no  prophecy  bears  any  weight  with  me. 

D. — Thou  disciple  of  Satan  !  '  And  wh)»  have  prophecies  no 
weight  with  you  ? 

R. — Because,  to  give  them  such  weight,  requires  three  things  j 
the  concurrence  of  which  is  impossible.  These  are,  that  I  should, 
in  the  first  place,  be  a  witness  to  the  delivery  of  the  prophecy  ; 
next,  that  I  should  be  witness  also  to  the  event  ;  lastly,  that  it 
should  be  clearly  demonstrated  to  me  that  such  event  could  not 


370  PROFESSION   OP   FAITH   OP 

have  followed  by  accident :  for  though  a  prophecy  were  as  pre- 
cise, clear,  and  determinate  as  an  axiom  of  geometry  ;  yet  as  the 
perspicuity  of  a  prediction,  made  at  random,  does  not  render  the 
accomplishment  of  it  impossible,  that  accomplishment,  when  it 
happens,  proves  nothing  in  fact  concerning  the  foreknowledge  of 
him  who  predicted  it. 

You  see,  therefore,  to  what  your  pretended  supernatural  proofs, 

your  miracles,  and  your  prophecies  reduce  us  ; to  the  folly 

of  believing  them  all  on  the  credit  of  others,  and  of  submiting 
the  authority  of  God,  speaking  to  our  reason,  to  that  of  man.  If 
those  eternal  truths,  of  which  my  understanding  forms  the  strong- 
est conceptions,  can  possibly  be  false,  I  can  have  no  hope  of 
ever  arriving  at  certitude  ;  and  so  far  from  being- capable  of  be* 
ing  assured  that  you  speak  to  me  from  God,  I  cannot  even  be 
assured  of  his  existence. 

You  see  my  child,  how  many  difficulties  must  be  removed  be- 
fore our  disputants  can  agree  ;  nor  are  these  all.  Among  so 
many  different  religions,  each  of  which  prescribes  and  excludes 
the  other,  one  only  must  be  true,  if  indeed  there  be  such  a  one 
among  them  all.  Now,  to  discover  which  this  is,  it  is  not  enough 
to  examine  that  one  ;  it  is  necessary  to  examine  them  all,  as  we 
should  not,  on  any  occasion  whatever,  condemn  without  a  hear- 
ing.* It  is  necessary  to  compare  objections  with  proofs,  and  to 
know  what  each  objects  to  in  the  rest,  as  well  as  what  the  others 
have  to  offer  in  their  defence.  The  more  clearly  any  sentiment 
or  opinion  appears  demonstrated,  the  more  narrowly  it  behoves 
us  to  inquire,  what  are  the  reasons  which  prevent  its  opponents 
from  subscribing  to  it.  We  must  be  very  simple,  indeed,  to 
think  an  attention  to  the  theologists  of  our  own  party  sufficient 
to  instruct  us  in  what  our  adversaries  have  to  offer.  Where  shall 
we  find  divines,  of  any  persuasion,  perfectly  candid  and  honest  ? 
Do  they  not  all  begin  to  weaken  the  arguments  of  their  opponents, 
before  they  proceed  to  refute  them  ?  Each  is  the  oracle  of  his 
party,  and  makes  a  great  figure  among  his  partizans,  with  such 
proofs  as  would  expose  him  to  ridicule  among  those  of  a  different 
persuasion.  Are  you  desirous  of  gaining  information  from  books? 
What  a  fund  of  erudition  will  not  this  require  !  How  many  lan- 
guages must  you  learn  !  How  many  libraries  must  you  turn 
over  !  And  who  is  to  direct  you  in  the  choice  of  books  ?  There 
are  hardly  to  be  found  in  any  one  country,  the  best  books,  on  the 
contrary  side  of  the  question,  and  still  less  is  it  to  be  expected 
we  should  find  books  on  all  sides'.  The  writings  of  the  adverse 

*  Plutarch  relates  that. the  stoics,  among  other  idle  paradoxes,  maintained  that  in 
case  of  contradictory  opinions,  it  was  useless  to  hear  the  arguments  of  both  parties  ; 
for,  say  they,  oither  the  first  writer  has  proved  his  proposition,  or  he  has  not.  If  ha 
has  proved  it,  all  is  said  that  is  inquired,  and  the  adverse  party  ought  to  be  condemn- 
ed.; if  ho  has  not  proved  it,  ho  is  in  the  wrong,  and  ought  to  be  rejected. — This  is  the 
way  of  religionists  in  general,  they  will  hear  but  one  side  of  a  question. 


A  SAVOYARD  VICAR.  371 

and  absent  party,  where  they  even  found,  would  be  very  easily 
refuted.  The  absent  are  always  in  the  wrong  ;  and  the  most 
weak  and  insufficient  arguments,  laid  down  with  a  confident  as- 
surance, easily  efface  the  most  sensible  and  valid,  when  exposed 
with  contempt.  Add  to  all  this,  that  nothing  is  more  fallacious 
than  books,  nor  exhibit  less  faithfully  the  sentiments  of  their  wri- 
ters. The  judgment  which  you  formed,  for"  instance,  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  religion,  from  the  treatise  of  IBossuet,  was  very 
different  from  that  which  you  acquired  by  residing  among  us. 
You  have  seen  that  the  doctrines  we  maintain  in  our  controver- 
sies with  the  protestants,  are  not  those  which  are  taught  the 
common  people,  and  that  Bossuet's  book  by  no  means  resembles 
the  instructions  delivered  from  the  pulpit.  To  form  a  proper 
judgment  of  any  religion,  we  are  not  to  deduce  its  tenets  from 
the  books  of  its  professors  ;  we  must  go  and  learn  .it  among  the 
people.  Each  sect  have  their  peculiar  traditions,  their  customs, 
and  modes  of  acceptation,  which  constitute  the  peculiar  mode  of 
their  faith  ;  all  which  should  be  taken  into  consideration  when 
we  form  a  judgment  of  their  religion. 

How  many  considerable  nations  are  there,  who  print  no  books 
of  their  own,  and  read  none  of  ours  !  How  are  they  to  judge  of 
our  opinions,  or  we  of  theirs  ?  We  laugh  at  them,  they  despise 
us  j  and  though  our  travellers  have  turned  them  into  ridicule, 
they  need  only  to  travel  among  us,  to  ridicule  us  in  their  turn. 
In  what  country,  are  there  not  to  be  found  men  of  sense  and 
sincerity,  friends  of  truth,  who  require  only  to  know,  in  order  to 
embrace  it  ?  And  yet  every  one  imagines  truth  confined  to  his 
own  particular  system,  and  thinks  the  religion  of  all  other  nations 
in  the  world  absurd  ;  these  foreign  modes,  therefore  cannot  be 
in  reality  so  very  absurd  as  they  appear,  or  the  apparant  reason- 
ableness of  ours  is  less  real.  . 

We  have  three  principal  religions  in  Europe.  One  admits  on- 
ly of  one  revelation,  another  of  two,  and  the  third  of  three. 
Each  holds  the  other  in  detestation,  anathematizes  its  professors, 
accuses  them  of  ignorance,  obstinacy  and  falsehood.  What  im- 
partial person  will  presume  to  decide  between  them,  without  hav- 
ing first  examined  their  proofs  and  heard  their  reasons  ?  That 
which  admits  only  of  one  revelation  is  the  most  ancient,  and  seems 
the  least  disputable  ;  that  which  admits  of  three  is  the  most  mod- 
ern, and  seems  to  be  the  most  consistent ;  that  which  admits  of 
two,  and  rejects  the  third,  may  possibly  be  the  best  ;  but  it  has 
certainly  every  prepossession  against  it  :  its  inconsistency  stares 
one  full  in  the  face. 

In  all  these  three  revelations,  the  sacred  books  are  written  in 
languages  unknown  to  the  people  who  believe  in  them.  The 
Jews  no  longer  understand  Hebrew ;  the  Christians  neither  Greek 
nor  Hebrew  5  the  Turks  and  Persians  understand  no  Arabic  ; 
and  even  the  modern  Arabs  themselves,  speak  not  the  language- 


372  PROFESSION    OF    FAITH    OF 

of  Mahomet.  Is  not  this  a  very  simple  manner  of  instructing 
mankind,  by  talking  to  them  always  in  a  language  which  they  ;!.' 
not  comprehend?  But  these  books,  it  will  be  said,  are  transJai  >. 
ed ;  a  mighty  pretty  answer  !  Who  can  assure  me  they  ar* 
translated  faithfully,  or  that  it  is  even  possible  they  should  be  so; 
Who  can  give  me  a  sufficient  reason  why  God,  when  he  hath  * 
mind  to  speak  to  mankind,  should  stand  in  need  of  an  interpret- 
er ? 

I  can  never  conceive,  that  what  every  man  is  indispensably 
obliged  to  know,  can  be  shut  up  in  these  books  ;  or  that  he  whe 
is  incapacitated  to  understand  them,  or  the  persons  who  explain 
them,  will  be  punished  for  involuntary  ignorance.  But  we  are 
always  plaguing  ourselves  with  books.  What  a  frenzy!  Because 
Europe  is  full  of  books,  the  Europeans  conceive  them  to  be  in- 
dispensable, without  reflecting  that  three  fourths  of  the  world 
knew  nothing  at  all  about  them.  Are  not  all  books  written  by 
men  ?  How  greatly,  therefore,  must  man  have  stood  in  need  of 
them,  to  instruct  him  in  his  duty  ;  and  by  what  means  did  he 
come  to  the  knowledge  of  such  duties,  before  books  were  writ- 
ten? Either  he  must  have  acquired  such  knowledge  himself,  or 
it  must  have  been  totally  dispensed  with. 

We  Roman  Catholics,  make  a  great  noise  about  the  authority 
of  the  church  :  but  what  do  we  gain  by  it,  if  it  requires  as  many 
proofs  to  establish  this  authority  as  other  sects  require  immedi- 
ately to  establish  their  doctrines?  The  church  determines  that 
the  church  hath  a  right  to  determine.  Is  not  this  a  special  proof 
of  its  authority  ?  And  yet  depart  from  this,  and  we  enter  into 
endless  discussions. 

Do  you  know  many  Christians,  who  have  taken  the  pains  to 
examine  carefully  into  what  the  Jews  have  alledged  against  us? 
If  there  are  a  few  who  know  something  of  them,  it  is  from  what 
they  have  met  with  in  the  writings  of  Christians  :  a  very  pretty 
manner  truly  of  instructing  themselves  in  the  arguments  of  their 
opponents!  But  what  can  be  done?  If  any  one  should  dare  to 
publish  among  us  such  books  as  openly  espouse  the  cause  of  Ju- 
daism, we  should  punish  the  author,  the  editor,  and  the  booksel- 
ler.* This  policy  is  very  convenient,  and  very  sure  to  make  us 
always  in  the  right.  We  can  refute  at  pleasure  those  who  are 
afraid  to  speak. 

Those  among  us,  also,  who  have  an  opportunity  to  converse 
with  the  Jews,  have  but  little  advantage.  These  unhappy  peo- 
ple know  they  lie  at  our  mercy  ;  the  tyranny  we  exercise  over 

*  Among  a  thousand  known  instances,  the  following  stands  in  no  need  of  com- 
ment. The  Catholic  divines  of  the  sixteenth  century  having  condemned  all  the  Jew- 
ish books,  without  exception,  to  be  burned,  a  learned  and  illustrious  theologue,  who 
was  consulted  on  that  occasion,  had  very  nigh  involved  himself  in  ruin,  by  being 
simpK  of  opinion  that  such  of  them  might  be  preserved  as  did  not  relate  to  Chris- 
tianity, or  treated  of  matters  foreign  to  religion. 


A  SAVOYARD  VICAR  373 

them,  renders  them  justly  timid  and  reserved  ;  they  know  how 
far  cruelty  and  injustice  are  compatible  with  Christian  charity  : 
what,  therefore,  can  they  venture  to  say  to  us,  without  running 
the  risk  of  incurring  the  charge  of  blasphemy  ?  Avarice  in- 
spires us  with  zeal,  and  they  are  too  rich  not  to  be  ever  in  the 
wrong. 

The  most  sensible  and  learned  among  them  are  the  most  cir- 
cumspect and  reserved.  We  make  a  convert,  perhaps  of  some 
wretched  hireling,  to  calumniate  his  sect  ;  set  a  parcel  of  pitiful 
brokers  disputing,  who  give  up  the  point  merely  to  gratify  us  ; 
but  while  we  triumph  over  the  ignorance  or  meanness  of  such 
wretched  opponents,  the  learned  among  them  smile  in  contemp- 
tuous silence  at  our  folly. 

But  do  you  think  that  in  places  where  they  might  write  and 
speak  securely,  we  should  have  so  much  the  advantage  of  them  ? 
Among  the  doctors  of  the  Sorbonne,  it  is  as  clear  as  day-light, 
that  the  predictions  concerning  the  Messiah  relate  to  Jesus  Christ. 
Among  the  Rabbins  at  Amsterdam,  it  is  just  as  evident  they  have 
no  relation  to  him.  I  shall  never  believe  that  I  have  acquired  a 
sufficient  acquaintance  with  the  arguments  of  the  Jews,  till  they 
compose  a  free  and  independent  state,  and  have  their  schools 
and  universities,  where  they  may  talk  and  discourse  with  fredom 
and  impunity.  Till  then,  we  can  never  truly  know  what  they 
have  to  say. 

At  Constantinople,  the  Turks  make  known  their  reasons,  and 
we  durst  not  publish  ours  :  there  it  is  our  turn  to  submit.  If 
the  Turks  require  of  us  to  pay  to  Mahomet,  in  whom  we  do  not 
believe,  the  same  respect  which  we  require  the  Jews  to  pay  to 
Jesus  Christ,  in  whom  they  believe  as  little  ;  can  the  Turks  be 
in  the  wrong,  and  we  in  the  right  ?  On  what  principles  of  equity 
can  we  resolve  that  question,  in  our  own  favour  ? 

Two  thirds  of  mankind  are  neither  Jews,  Mahometans,  nor 
Christians  ;  how  many  millions  of  men,  therefore,  must  there  be 
who  never  heard  of  Moses,  of  Jesus  Christ,  or  of  Mahomet  ! 
Will  this  be  denied  ?  Will  it  be  said  that  our  missionaries  are 
dispersed  over  the  face  of  the  whole  earth  ?  This  indeed  is 
easily  affirmed  ;  but  are  there  any  of  them  in  the  interior  of 
Africa,  where  no  European  hath  ever  yet  penetrated  ?  Do  they 
travel  through  the  inland  parts  of  Tartary,  or  follow  on  horse- 
back the  wandering  hordes,  whom  no  stranger  ever  approaches, 
and  who,  so  far  from  having  heard  of  the  Pope,  hardly  know  any 
thing  of  their  own  Grand  Lama  ?  Do  our  missionaries  traverse 
the  immense  continent  of  America,  where  there  are  whole  na- 
tions still  ignorant  that  the  people  of  another  world  have  set  foot 
on  theirs  ?  Are  there  any  of  them  in  Japan,  from  whence  their 
ill  behaviour  hath  banished  them  for  ever,  and  where  the  fame 
of  their  predecessors  are  transmitted  to  succeeding  generations, 
as  that  of  artful  knaves,  who.  under  cover  of  a  religious  zeal. 

32 


374  PROFESSION   OP    FAITH    OF 

wanted  to  make  themselves  imperceptibly  masters  of  the  empire  ? 
Do  they  penetrate  into  the  harams  of  the  Asiatic  princes,  to 
preach  the  gospel  to  millions  of  wretched  slaves  ?  What  .will  be- 
come of  the  women  in  that  part  of  the-  world,  for  want  of  a  mis- 
sionary to  preach  the  gospel  to  them  ?  Must  every  one  of  them 
go  to  hell  for  being  a  recluse  ? 

But  were  it  true  that  the  gospel  is  preached  in  every  part  of 
the  earth,  the  difficulty  is  not  removed.  On  the  eve  preceding 
the  arrival  of  the  first  missionary  in  any  country,  some  one 
person  of  that  country  expired  without  hearing  the-  glad  tidings 
Now,  what  must  we  do  with  this  one  person  ?  Is  there  but  a 
single  individual  in  the  whole  universe,  to  whom  the  gospel  of 
Christ  is  not  made  known,  the  objection  which  presents  itself, 
on  account  of  this  one  person,  is  as  cogent  as  if  it  included  a 
fourth  part  of  the  human  race. 

Again,  suppose  the  ministers  of  the  gospel  actually  present 
and  preaching  in  those  distant  nations,  how  can  they  reasonably 
expect  tc  be  believed  on  their  own  word,  and  that  their  hearers 
will  not  scrupulously  require  a  confirmation  of  what  they  teach  ? 
Might  not  any  one  of  the  latter  very  reasonably  say  to  them, 
"  You  tell  me  of  a  God  who  was  born  and  put  to  death  near  two 
thousand  years  ago,  at  the  other  end  of  the  world,  and  in  I  know 
not  what  obscure  town  ;  assuring  me  that  all  those  who  do  not 
believe  in  this  mysterious  tale  are  damned.  These  are  things 
too  strange  to  be  credited  on  the  sole  authority  of  a  man,  who  is 
himself  a  perfect  stranger." 

Why  hath  your  God  brought  those  events  to  pass,  of  which 
he  requires  me  to  be  instructed,  at  so  great  a  distance  ?  Is  it  a 
crime  to  be  ignorant  of  what  passes  at  the  Antipodes  ?  Is  it  pos- 
sible for  me  to  divine  that  there  existed,  in  the  other  hemisphere, 
the  people  of  the  Jews,  and  the  city  of  Jerusalem  ?  I  might  as 
well  be  required  to  know  what  happened  in  the  moon.  You  are 
come,  you  say,  to  inform  me  ;  but  why  did  you  not  come  time 
enough  to  inform  my  father  ?  Or  why  do  you  damn  that  good 
old  man,  because  he  knew  nothing  of  the  matter  ?  Must  he  be 
eternally  punished  for  your  .delay  ?  he  who  was  so  just,  so  be- 
nevolent, and  so  desirous  of  knowing  the  truth  !  Be  honest,  and 
suppose^ yourself  in  my  place.  Do  you  think,  upon  your  testi- 
mony alone,  that  I  can  believe  all  these  incredible  things  you 
tell  me  ?  or  reconcile  so  much  injustice  with  the  character  of  that 
just  God,  whom  you  pretend  to  make  known  ?  Let  me  first,  I 
pray  you,  go  and  see  this  distant  country,  where  so  many  mira- 
cles have  happened,  totally  unknown  here.  Let  me  go  and  be 
well  informed  why  the  inhabitants  of  that  Jerusalem  presumed 
to  treat  God  like  a  thief  or  a  murderer  ? 

They  did  not,  you  will  say,  acknowledge  his  divinity.  How 
then  can  I,  who  never  have  heard  of  him,  but  from  you  ?  You 
add,  that  they  were  punished,  dispersed,  and  led  into  captivity  : 


A    SAVOYARD    VICAR.  375 

not  one  of  them  ever  approaching  their  former  city.  Assuredly 
they  deserved  all  this  :  but  its  present  inhabitants,  what  say  they 
of  the  unbelief  and  deicide  of  their  predecessors  ?  They  deny 
it,  and  acknowledge  the  divinity  of  the  sacred  personage  just  as 
little  as  did  its  ancient  inhabitants. 

What  !  in  the  same  city  in  which  your  God  was  put  to  death, 
neither  the  ancient  nor  present  inhabitants  acknowledge  his  di- 
vinity! And  yet  you  would  have  me  believe  it,  who  was  born 
near  two  thousand  years  after  the  fact,  and  two  thousand  leagues 
distant  from  the  place  !  Don't  you  see  that,  before  I  can  give 
credit  to  this  book,  which  you  call  sacred,  and  of  which  I  com- 
prehend nothing,  I  ought  to  be  informed  from  others,  when  and 
by  whom  it  was  written,  how  it  hath  been  preserved  and  trans-- 
mitted  to  you,  what  is  said  of  it  in  the  country,  what  are  the  rea- 
sons of  those  who  reject  it,  though  they  know  as  well  as  you  ev- 
ery thing  of  which  you  have  informed  me?  You  must  perceive 
the  necessity  I  am  under,  of  going  first  to  Europe,  to  Asia,  and 
unto  Palestine,  to  examine  into  things  myself;  and  that  I  must  be 
an  idiot  to  listen  to  you  before  I  have  done  this. 

Such  a  discourse  as  this,  appears  to  me  not  only  very  reasona- 
ble, but  I  affirm  that  every  sensible  man  ought,  in  such  circum- 
stances, to  speak  in  the  same  manner,  and  to  send  a  missionary 
about  his  business,  who  should  be  in  haste  to  instruct  and  baptise 
him  before  he  had  sincerely  verified  the  proofs  of  his  mission. 
Now,  I  maintain  that  there  is  no  revelation  against  which  the 
same  objections  might  not  be  made,  and  that  with  greater  force, 
than  against  Christianity.  Hence  it  follows,  that  if  there  be  in 
the  world  but  one  true  religion,  and  every  man  be  obliged  to 
adopt  it,  under  pain  of  damnation,  it  is  necessary  to  spend  our 
lives  in  the  study  of  all  religions,  to  visit  the  countries  where 
they  have  been  established,  and  examine  and  compare  them  with 
each  other.  No  man  is  exempted  from  the  principal  duty  of  his 
species,  and  no  one  hath  a  right  to  confide  in  the  judgment  of 
another.  The  artisan,  >vho  lives  only  by  his  industry,  the  hus- 
bandman, who  cannot  read,  the  timid  and  delicate  virgin,  the  fee- 
ble valetudinarian,  all  without  exception,  must  study,  meditate, 
dispute,  and  travel  the  world  over,  in  search  of  truth.  There 
would  be  no  longer  any  settled  inhabitants  in  a  country,  the  face 
of  the  earth  being  covered  bj  pilgrims,  going  from  place  to  place, 
at  great  trouble  and  expense,  to  verify,  examine  and  compare  the 
several  different  systems  and  modes  of  worship  to  be  met  with  in 
various  countries.  We  must,  in  such  a  case,  bid  adieu  to  arts 
and  sciences,  to  trade,  and  all  the  civil  occupations  of  life.  Ev- 
ery other  study  must  give  place  to  that  of  religion  ;  while  the 
man  who  should  enjoy  the  greatest  share  of  health  and  strength, 
and  make  the  best  use  of  his  time  and  his  reason,  for  the  greatest 
term  of  years  allotted  to  human  life,  would,  in  the  extreme  of  old 
age,  be  still  perplexed  where  to  fix  :  and  it  would  be  a  great 


376  PROFESSION    OF    FAITH    OF 

thing,  after  all,  if  he  should  learn  before  his  death  what  religion 
he  ought  to  have  believed  and  practised  during  life. 

Do  you  endeavour  to  mitigate  the  severity  of  this  method,  and 
place  as  little  confidence  as  possible  in  the  authority  of  men  ? 
In  so  doing  you  place  the  greatest  confidence  :  for  if  the  son  of 
a  Christian  does  right,  in  adopting,  without  a  scrupulous  and 
impartial  examination,  the  religion  of  his  father,  how  can  the  son 
of  a  Turk  do  wrong,  in  adopting  in  the  same  manner,  the  reli- 
gion of  Mahomet  ?  I  defy  all  the  persecutors  in  the  world  to 
answer  this  question  in  a  manner  satisfactory  to  any  person  of 
common  sense.  Nay,  some  of  them,  when  hard  pressed  by  such 
arguments,  will  sooner  admit  that  God  is  unjust,  and  visits  the 
sins  of  the  fathers  on  the  children,  than  give  up  their  cruel  and 
persecuting  principles.  Others,  indeed,  elude  the  force  of  these 
reasons,  by  civilly  sending  an  angel  to  instruct  those,  who,  un- 
der invincible  ignorance,  live,  nevertheless,  good  moral  lives.  A 
very  pretty  device,  truly,  that  of  the  angel!  not  contented  with 
subjecting  us  to  their  machinery,  they  would  reduce  the  Deity 
himself  to  the  necessity  of  employing  it. 

See,  my  son,  to  what  absurdities  we  are  led  by  pride,  and  the 
spirit  of  persecution,  by  being  puffed  up  by  our  own  capacity, 
and  conceiving  that  we  possess  a  greater  share  of  reason  than 
the  rest  of  mankind.  I  call  to  witness  that  God  of  peace  whom 
I  adore,  and  whom  I  would  make  known  to  you,  that  my  re- 
searches have  been  always  sincere  :  but  seeing  that  they  were, 
and  always  must  be,  unsuccessful,  and  that  I  was  launched  out 
into  a  boundless  ocean  of  perplexity,  I  returned  the  way  I  came, 
and  confined  my  creed  within  the  limits  of  my  first  notions.  I 
could  never  believe  that  God  required  me,  under  pain  of  dam- 
nation, to  be  so  very  learned.  I,  therefore,  shut  up  all  my  books: 
that  of  nature  lies  open  to  every  eye.  It  is  from  this  sublime 
and  wonderful  volume  that  I  learn  to  serve  and  adore  its  divine 
Author.  No  person  is  excusable  for  neglecting  to  read  in  this 
book,  as  it  is  written  in  an  universal  language,  intelligible  to  all 
mankind.  Had  I  been  born  in  a  desert  islajid,  or  never  seen  a 
human  creature  beside  myself ;  had  I  never  been  informed  of 
what  had  formerly  happened  in  a  certain  corner  of  the  world ;  I 
might  yet  have  learned  by  the  exercise  and  cultivation  of  my 
reason,  and  by  the  proper  use  of  those  faculties  God  hath  given 
me,  to  know  and  love  him  ;  I  might  hence  have  learned  to  love 
and  admire  his  power  and  goodness,  and  to  have  discharged  my 
duty  here  on  earth. 

Such  is  the  involuntary  scepticism  in  which  I  remain;  this 
scepticism,  however,  is  not  painful  to  me,  because  it  extends  not 
to  any  essential  point  of  practice  j  and  as  my  mind  is  firmly  set- 
tled regarding  the  principles  of  my  duty,  I  serve  God  in  the  sin- 
cerity of  my  heart.  In  the  mean  time,  I  seek  not  to  know  any 
thing  more  than  what  relates  to  my  moral  conduct  :  and  as  to 


SAVOYARD    VICAR,  377 

those  dogmas,  which  have  no  influence  over  the  behaviour,  and 
which  many  persons  give  themselves  so  much  trouble  about,  I 
am  not  at  all  solicitous  concerning  them. 

Thus,  my  young  friend,  have  I  given  you  with  my  own  lips  a 
recital  of  my  creed,  such  as  the  supreme  Being  reads  it  in  my 
heart.  You  are  the  first  person  to  whom  I  have  made  this  pro- 
fession :  you  are  also  the  only  one,  perhaps,  to  whom  I  shall 
ever  make  it. 

You  are  now  arrived  at  the  critical  term  of  life,  in  which  the 
mind  opens  itself  to  conviction,  in  which  the  heart  receives  the 
form  and  character  which  it  bears  during  life,  whether  good  or 
ill.  Its  substance  grows  afterwards  hard,  and  receives  no  new 
impressions.  Now  is  the  time,  therefore,  to  impress  on  your 
mind  the  seal  of  truth.  If  I  were  more  positive  in  myself,  I 
should  have  assumed  a  more  decisive  and  dogmatical  air  ;  but, 
what  can  I  do  more  ?  I  have  opened  to  you  my  heart,  without 
reserve  :  what  I  have  thought  certain,  I  have  given  you  as  such  ; 
my  doubts  I  have  declared  as  doubts,  my  opinions  as  opinions  ; 
and  have  given  you  my  reasons  for  both.  It  remains,  now,  for 
you  to  jjjdge  ;  you  have  taken  time  ;  this  precaution  is  wise,  and 
makes  me  think  well  of  you.  Begin  by  bringing  your  con- 
science to  a  state  desirouo  of  being  enlightened.  Be  sincere 
with  yourself.  Adopt  those  of  my  sentiments  which  you  are 
persuaded  are  true,  and  reject  the  rest.  You  are  not  yet  so 
much  depraved  by  vice  to  run  the  risk  of  making  a  bad  choice. 
I  should  propose  to  confer  together  sometimes  on  these  subjects  ; 
but  as  soon  as  ever  we  enter  into  disputes  we  grow  warm  :  ob- 
stinacy and  vanity  interfere,  and  sincerity  is  banished.  For  my 
own  part,  it  was  not  till  after  several  years  of  meditation  that  my 
sentiments  became  fixed  ;  these,  however,  I  still  retain,  my  con- 
science is  easy,  and  I  am  content.  Were  I  desirous  to  begin 
a  new  examination  into  the  truth  of  these  sentiments,  I  could 
not  do  it  with  a  more  sincere  love  to  truth  :  and  my  mind  at  pres- 
ent less  active,  would  be  less  in  a  state  to  discover  it.  I  pur- 
pose, therefore,  to  remain  as  I  am,  lest  my  taste  for  contempla- 
tion should  become  insensibly  an  idle  passion  ;  lest  it  should 
make  me  indifferent  to  the  discharge  of  my  practical  duties. 
About  half  my  life  is  already  spent,  the  remainder  will  not  afford 
me  time  more  than  sufficient  to  repair  my  errors  by  my  virtues. 
If  I  am  mistaken,  it  is  not  wilfully.  That  Being,  who  searches 
the  hearts  of  men,  knows  that  I  am  not  fond  of  ignorance.  But 
under  my  present  incapacity  to  instruct  myself  better,  the  only 
method  that  remains  for  me  to  extricate  myself,  is  a  good  life. 


A  LETTER 

FROM 

ROUSSEAU  TO  HIS  BOOKSELLER 

AT  THE  HAGUE. 


SIR, — I  am  very  sorry  for  that  embarrassment  which  you  tell 
me  you  lie  under,  on  account  of  the  Savoyard's  Creed,  inserted 
in  my  Emilius  ;  hut  I  declare  to  you  again,  once  for  all,  that  no 
threats,  no  violence,  shall  ever  prevail  on  me  to  suppress  a  sylla- 
ble of  what  I  have  written.  As  you  did  not  think  it  necessary  to 
consult  me  with  regard  to  the  contents  of  my  manuscript,  when 
you  treated  for  the  copy,  you  have  no  right  to  make  application 
to  me  now,  on  account  of  the  obstacles  you  may  meet  with  to  its 
publication  ;  especially  as  to  the  bold  truths  scattered  up  and 
down  in  my  other  works,  might  very  naturally  suggest  to  you, 
that  this  was  by  no  means  exempt  from  the  like.  I  am  astonish- 
ed you  should  ever  conceive  that  a  man,  who  takes  so  many  pre- 
cautions that  his  works  may  not  be  altered  after  his  decease, 
would  permit  them  fo  be  mutilated  during  his  life  time. 

With  respect  to  the  several  reasons  you  have  urged,  you  might 
Jiave  spared  yourself  that  trouble,  by  supposing  that  I  had  my- 
self reflected  on  what  is  proper  to  be  done.  You  tell  me  that  I 
am  censured  by  people  of  my  own  way  of  thinking.  But,  this 
cannot  possibly  be  ;  for  I  who  certainly  am  of  my  Own  way  of 
thinking,  approve  what  I  have  done  :  nor  is  there  any  action  of 
my  whole  life  with  which  my  heart  is  more  perfectly  satisfied. 
In  ascribing  glory  to  God,  and  endeavouring  to  promote  the 
good  of  mankind,  I  have  done  my  duty  ;  whether  they  profit  by 
it  or  not.  I  would  not  give  a  straw  to  convert  their  censure  to 
applause.  As  for  the  rest,  to  take  things  in  the  worst  light,  what 
can  the  world  do  to  me  more  than  the  infirmities  of  my  nature 
will  very  speedily  do  of  themselves  ?  The  public  can  neither 
confer  nor  deprive  me  of  my  reward  ;  this  depends  not  on  anv 
human  power.  You  see,  therefore,  that  my  measures  are  taken 
let  what  will  happen  ;  for  which  reason,  I  would  advise  you* to 
press  me  no  farther  on  the  subject  ;  as  every  thing  you  can  pos- 
sibly advance  will  be  absolutely  to  no  purpose. 


RELIGIOUS  DOGMAS; 

THEIR  ORIGIN  AND  CONSEQUENCES. 


This  Mick  first  appeared  in  "  The  Prospect.''''  It  was  ivritten  by 
a  Mr.  Taylor,  an  Englishman,  a  particular  friend  of  Elihu 
Palmer,  editor  of  that  work. 


RELIGION,  in  its  most  common  acceptation,  is  a  complex  idea 
compounded  of  three  things  total!/ distinct  from  each  other  ;  the 
first  I  shall  mention  is  the  observance  of  certain  rites  and  cere- 
monies, such  as  circumcision — baptism — fasting  on  particular 
days — feasting  on  others — abstaining  from  pleasures,  and  many 
other  external  symbols  which  have,'  by  some,  been  considered  as 
the  sum  total  of  religion.  2dly.  There  is  included  in  the  idea 
of  religion,  an  assent  to  certain  metaphysical  propositions,  such 
as  the  nature  and  properties  of  the  supreme  intelligence,  the  ex- 
tent of  his  interference  in  the  affairs  of  this  world,  and  the  na- 
ture and  essence  of  the  human  soil.  3dly.  The  word  religion 
has  also  included  in  it  an  approbation  of  some  systems  of  mo- 
rality, supposed  to  be  deduced  as  a  necessary  inference  from  the 
articles  of  belief.  Hence  it  has  been  said,  morality  itself,  or  the 
knowledge  and  practice  of  duties  alone,  is  not  religion,  without 
it  be  accompanied  with  the  observance  of  certain  rites,  and  the 
belief  in  a  metaphysical  creed.  Neither  is  the  observance  of 
the  established  ceremonies  to  be  considered  as  acts  of  religion, 
unless  the  prescribed  duties  be  also  fulfilled  ;  but  above. all  things 
the  mind  must  give  its  assent  to  the  metaphysical  creed.  Finally, 
this  metaphysical  creed,  which  in  every  case  is  so  essentially 
necessary,  is  not  of  itself  religion.  Ceremonies  must  be  observ- 
ed, and  that  kind  of  morality,  deducible  from  an  absurd  creed, 
must  be  adhered  to,  as  far  as  the  weakness  of  our  supposed  fallen 
nature  will  allow. 

Nothing  could  have  supported  extravagant  rites  and  ceremo- 
nies, or  chained  men's  minds  down  to  absurd  creeds  if  these 
had  not  been'  artfully  interwoven  with  a  plausible  system  of  mo- 
rality ;  nor  would  men  have  submitted  to  call  that  good  which  is 
in  its  nature  evil,  or  that  evil,  which  is  naturally  good,  if  the 
irund  had  not  been  prepossessed  with  a  false  creed. 

It  js,  therefore,  my  intention  to  inquire  how  this  association  of 


380  RELIGIOUS    DOGMAS. 

three  ideas  totally  distinct  came  to  take  place  and  assume  the 
name  of  religion— what  connexion  they  have  in  nature — whether 
they  may  not  be  separated  without  injury  to  morality  ;  and,  final- 
ly, having  thus  stripped  morality  of  the  load  with  which  it  has 
been  incumbered,  we  shall  then  see  what  ought  to  be  the  idea  or 
definition  of  true  religion. 

As  it  would  take  up  too  much  time  to  examine  the  whole  of 
these  propositions,  we  shall  content  ourselves  with  an  investiga- 
tion of  the  probable  origin  of  rites,  ceremonies,  and  creeds.  In 
all  ages  mankind  have  believed  in  the  existence  of  celestial  be- 
ings, who  have  been  supposed  to  direct  the  affairs  of  this  lower 
world,  and  have  been  anxious  to  know  their  will,  and  as  far  back 
as  the  history  of  man  has  been  preserved,  the  practice  was  to 
have  recourse  to  oracles  ;  and,  frequently,  it  is  said,  anticipating 
the  wishes  of  man,  communicated  their  will  in  dreams  or  visions: 
but  as  oracles  and  dreams  were  always  ambiguous,  a  class  of 
men  sprung  up,  who,  taking  advantage  of  the  passions  of  the 
ignorant,  pretended  to  a  superior  skill  in  the  interpretation  of 
these  imaginary  enigmas  :  this  was  found  to  be  so  profitable  an 
employment,  that  its  professors,  desirousNof  converting  it  into  a 
trade,  wherein  many  hands  might  be  employed,  under  the  direc- 
tion, and  for  the  emolument  of  one  chief;  taught  their  pupils  that 
certain  appearances  in  nature,  denoted  certain  purposes  of  the 
gods  ;  hence  the  management  of  the  Urim  and  Thummim  among 
the  Jews,  which  answers  to  the  purpose  of  reading  cards  or  cups, 
by  old  women  of  the  present  day  :  of  the  same  kind  also,  were 
predictions  from  the  appearanc%  of  the  entrails  of  sacrificed  ani- 
mals, and  the  manner  of  the  flight  of  birds.  This  was  the  origin 
of  the  priesthood  and  of  priestcraft.  Afterwards  the  followers  of 
the  craft,  while  »they  were  deceiving  the  world  by  lies,  were  them- 
selves deceived,  believing,  as  they  did,  implicitly  in  the  corres- 
pondences taught  or  transmitted  to  them  from  the  first  deceivers. 

As  the  whole  invention  of  converting  lying  into  a  trade  was 
only  that  its  followers  might  live  in  splendid  idleness  ;  and  as 
money  was  not  then  a  representative  for  wealth,  sacrifices  and 
offerings  were  invented  :  the  first  to  satisfy  the  hunger  of  the 
priests,  the  second  to  procure  them  the  gratification  of  their  pas- 
sions :  and  as  in  those  days  the  people  were  accustomed  to  bar- 
ter, and  to  give  one  substantial  object  for  another,  it  was  neces- 
sary to  give  them  some  plausible  reason  that  might  satisfy  the 
minds  of  the  people,  as  to  the  strange  absurdity  and  injustice  of 
taking  a  bullock,  or  a  ram  of  the  best  of  their  flocks  for  that  which 
cost  nothing,  they  were  therefore  told,  that  these  sacrifices  and 
offerings  were  pleasing  and  acceptable  to  the  gods,  and  that  for 
these  small  donations,  or  rather  bribes,  the  heavenly  powers 
would  be  propitious,  and  change  their  absolute  decrees. 

This  period  of  deception  may  be  called  the  age  of  oracles,  and 
it  lasted  as  long  as  the  priests  were  moderate  in  their  demands  ; 


RELIGIOUS    DOGMAS.  381 

while  they  preserved  some  show  of  decency  in  their  manners,  and 
while  the  characters  and  actions  of  their  gods  were  such  as  indi- 
cate a  divine  origin  ;  but  when  the  priests  became  too  rapacious 
and  greedy,  and  when  their  morals  and  the  morals  ascribed  to 
their  gods  grew  to  be  so  dissolute  and  abandoned  that  they  had 
more  the  appearance  of  demons  and  tyrants,  than  of  gods,  and 
men  desirous  of  the  happiness  of  the  human  race,  then  this  su- 
perstition, after  combating  with  reason  for  several  centuries,  was 
obliged  to  give  place  to  another  equally  absurd  and  wicked,  but 
which  in  its  commencement  gained  the  approbation  of  the  people 
by  the  purity  of  the  lives  of  the  first  promulgators ;  this  is  the 
doctrine  of  discovering  the  will  of  gods  from  books  of  scripture. 
Oracles  or  dreams  were  then  said  to  be  abandoned  as  improper 
means  of  communicating  the  will  of  gods  to  men. 

Demons,  it  is  said,  had  taken  advantage  of  those  means  and 
had  egregiously  deceived  the  people,  insomuch,  that  the  will  of 
demons  or  evil  spirits  were  generally  substituted  for  that  of  the 
true  God.  A  doctrine  which  gained  an  easy  belief  from  the  peo- 
ple of  those  times,  as  the  will  of  the  gods  expressed  by  the  ora- 
cles tended  more  frequently  to  the  destruction  than  preservation 
of  mankind.  It  was  said,  also,  that  to  prevent  the  interference 
of  devils  or  false  (lying)  gods,  the  only  true  God  had  written  or 
caused  to  be  written  in  some  ancient  manuscript  books,  some  of 
them  in  the  language  of  Paradise  which  was  almost  forgotten, 
and  hardly  understood,  and  others  in  the  prevailing  language  of 
that  time,  which  was  the  Greek  ;  that  they  ordered  these  books 
to  be  collected  and  preserved  for  the  instruction  of  men  in  all 
ages  and  in  every  nation  ;  and  he  promises,  that  this  shall  be  his 
unalterable  will  and  last  testament ;  that  he  will  no  longer  confuse 
or  perplex  the  people  of  the  earth  with  new  regulations  and  laws; 
and  finally,  that  he  would,  to  the  end  of  time,  continue  a  succes- 
sion of  priests  whose  trade  it  should  be  to  interpret  those  books, 
and  reconcile  their  contradictions,  for  which  they  are  to  receive 
money,  and  thereby  put  an  end  to  sacrifices. 

It  is  evident  that  the  inventors  of  this  doctrine  had  the  same 
end  in  view,  with  those  others  who*  invented  correspondences  and 
the  interpretation  of  dreams  :  namely,  to  form  it  into  a  trade  or 
craft  for  the  mutual  benefit  of  the  concerned  :  though  some 
good  people  have  been  surprised  that  there  ever  should  exist 
such  villany  as  to  impose  upon  mankind  by  falsifying  the  divine 
being,  and  making  God  as  it  were  accessary  to  their  crimes.  To 
which  it  may  be  answered,  that  this  species  of  villany  proceeds 
from  a  most  accursed  principle,  which  never  was  more  prevalent 
than  now,  namely,  "  That  such  is  the  perverse  nature  of  man,  so 
prone  is  he  to  do  evil  that  it  is  necessary  to  deceive  him  in  order 
that  he  may  be  persuaded  to  pursue  his  own  good."  Let  a  man's 
mind  be  possessed  of  this  principle,  and  add  to  it  talents  and  op- 
portunity, and  he  will  not  hesitate  to  raise  his  fortune  and  power 


382  RELIGIOUS    DOGMAS. 

by  taking  sacrilegious  liberties  with  the  character  of  the  Supreme 
Intelligence. 

Having  got  possession  of  Some  of  those  books,  and  having 
reserved  to  themselves  the  interpretation  of  them,  they  began  to 
teach  the  world  doctrines  suited  to  their  own  views  and  interest, 
all  of  which  will  be  examined  in  due  time,  by  the  eye  of  reason 
and  the  standard  of  nature.  It  was  unfortunate  for  mankind 
that  there  should  be  so  many  books  •(written  in  different  centu- 
ries, and  by  men  of  contrary  sentiments)  exhibited  to  the  world 
as  the  will  of  God,  and  holding  out,  as  these  books  do,  the  char- 
acter of  the  Deity,  in  so  many  different  points  of  view  ;  some- 
times as  a  sanguinary  tyrant,  who  cannot  be  satisfied  but  by 
blood  and  sacrifices,  and  every  species  of  absurd  formality  ; — -at 
other  times  as  a  kind,  beneficent  being,  who  held  sacrifices,  new 
moons,  and  the  most  solemn  meetings  as  an  abomination  ;-— at 
one  time  declaring  himself  the  God  of  Abraham,  Isaac,  and 
Jacob,  and  afterwards  professing  to  be  the  God  of  the  whole 
earth.  In  one  book  issuing  a  decree  that  the  children  shall  bear 
the  sins  of  their  fathers  even  to  the  third  and  fourth  generation, 
and  in  another  repealing  that  law  when  it  became  disagreeable 
to  the  people,  and  they  had  made  use  of  a  taunting  proverb  con- 
cerning it,  viz.  "  The  fathers  have  eaten  sour  grapes,  and  the 
children's  teeth  are  set  on  edge  by  it."  Jer.  21,  29.  These 
contradictions  could  not  fail  to  cause  dispute,  but  they  have  done 
more,  they  have  been  the  cause  of  bloody  and  destructive  wars, 
which  have  not  only  disgraced  religion,  but  human  nature,  and 
put  back  the  age  of  reason  for  many  centuries.  This  was  an 
accident,  however,  that  was  unavoidable,  for  the  Jews  had  from  a 
national  pride,  and  by  universal  consent,  consecrated  all  their 
ancient  books  that  were  saved  after  their  return  from  Babylon, 
and  the  first  Christians,  however  willing  they  might  be,  had  not 
sufficient  authority  to  bring  in  question  the  fact  of  their  inspi- 
ration. 

Towards  the  end  of  the  age  of  oracles,  and  the  commence- 
ment of  the  age  we  are  now  speaking  of,  which  may  be  termed 
the  age  of  scripture-  belief,  every  thing  written  in  the  ancient 
Hebrew  tongue,  was  sought  after  with  wonderful  avidity.  It 
was  a  mania  that  possessed  the  world  at  that  time,  as  antique 
medals  and  pictures  have  done  at  other  periods  ;  they  sought  for 
them  as  for  hidden  treasure,  and  every  fragment  that  could  be 
rescued  from  obscurity  and  the  teeth  of  time,  was  considered  of 
inestimable  value.  It  was  the  same  with  any  Greek  epistle  or 
fragment  that  in  the  slightest  manner  mentioned  the  name  of 
Jesus  Christ  or  his  disciples.  This  mania  lasted  for  several  cen- 
turies, during  which  time  the  scriptures,  or  manuscripts  which 
they  called  the  word  of  God,  were  growing  in  the  bulk  and  mat- 
ter for  disputation.  Forgeries  of  epistles  and  gospels  in  Greek, 
were  numerous  5  those  in  Hebrew  were  fewer/because  not  many 


RELIGIOUS    DOGMAS.  383 

understood  that  language  ;  besides  there  were  more  scripture 
already  in  the  Hebrew,  than  suited  the  doctrines  which  the  first 
Christians  were  anxious  to  establish.  For  a  long  time,  there- 
fore, it  was  the  wish  of  many  that  several  of  the  Hebrew  books 
were  out  of  the  sacred  catalogue,  it  was  found  so  difficult  to 
make  them  bend  to  the  new  opinions. 

When  the  age  of  scripture  belief  was  in  its  full  ;  and  the  peo- 
ple as  ignorant  as  could  be  wished  by  designing  men,  a  council 
\vas  called  who  took  upon  them  to  determine  upon  the  validity  of 
the  last  will  and  testament  of  Almighty  God.  By  this  council 
several  of  the  books  were  deprived  of  their  sacred  character  ; 
but  whether  the  true  or  the  forged  is  uncertain. 

From  that  period  the  teachers  and  the  taught  have  been  equally 
deceiving  and  deceived  ;  we  do  not,  therefore,  charge  any  Chris- 
tians of  the  present  day  with  preaching  a  false  doctrine  on  pur- 
pose to  deceive  ;  but  we  say  of  them  as  Charles  V.,  Emperor  of 
Germany,  said  of  Luther  and  Calvin — they  are  seduced  by  their 
own  opinions,  and  that  their  own  interest,  coupled  with  that  most 
abominable  of  all  principles  mentioned  above,  namely,  that  men 
must  be  deceived  for  their  own  good,  causes  them  to  despise  the. 
dictates  of  reason,  and  assist  in  perpetuating  the  deception. 

The  age  of  scripture  belief  has  been  the  most  dreadful  sera, 
and  the  most  calamitous  to  the  human  race  that  history  has  re- 
corded. In  one  war,  the  crusades,  which  was  about  a  rotten 
piece  of  wood,  the  cross  of  Christ,  there  was  more  money  spent, 
blood  shed,  cruelties  committed,  than  in  any  v/ar  either  before  or 
Eirice.  At  the  taking  of  Jerusalem  20,000  Turks  were  slain,  and 
notwithstanding  a  proclamation  of  pardon,  the  Christians  put  to 
death  all  the  Turks  found  in  the  city,  without  regard  to  age  or 
»ex,  with  the  same  zeal,  as  the  authors  of  those  days  call  it, 
wherewith  Saul  slew  the  Gibeonites. 

It  is  not  my  intention  at  this  time  to  enumerate  the  evils  that 
this  system  has  occasioned.  Experience  has  sufficiently  shown 
how  miserable  man  has  been  during  the  whole  age  of  scripture 
belief,  and  that  the  system  itself  is  giving  way  very  fast  to  the 
light  of  reason,  which  alone  can  give  man  an  adequate  idea  of 
an  intelligent  first  cause  and  of  the  means  which  he  has  provided 
for  our  improvement  and  happiness. 

It  is  only  my  intention  to  show  that  the  true  God  can  only  be 
known  by  the  investigation  of  reason  contemplating  the  mighty 
frabric  of  the  universe,  and  perceiving  throughout  the  whole  a 
unity  of  design  and  a  wonderful  contrivance.  This  is  the  first 
perception  or  glimpse  of  the  Deity  ;  the  actions  upon  which  all 
our  future  reasonings  must  be  founded,  and  from  which  all  the 
knowledge  we  can  attain  of  him  or  of  his  ways  with  man  is  drawri. 
By  beginning  at  the  source  we  shall  see  nothing  in  the  Supreme 
Intelligence  but  immense  goodness  and  power,  no  partialities,  no 
injustice  or  eternal  punishment  for  crimes  of  a  moment,  or  for 


384  RELIGIOUS    DOGMAS. 

acting  in  obedience  to  the  unalterable  laws  of  nature. — Led  by 
the  light  of  reason  man  will  perform  his  duty  as  a  son  under  the 
eye  of  a  kind  parent  ;  he  will  perform  his  duty  because  he  sees 
it  to  be  the  road  to  self-satisfaction,  and  that  he  is  acting  a  part 
in  a  great  work,  which  he  is  desirous  of  seeing  accomplished. 
He  considers  himself  as  belonging  to  the  great  family  of  mankind, 
and  is  assured  that  his  own  happiness  cannot  be  complete  with- 
out a  regard  to  the  happiness  of  the  whole  family.  In  his 
opinion,  heaven  itself  could  not  be  the  seat  of  happiness,  if  such 
a  place  as  hell  *has  an  existence  in  the  universe.  But  he  who 
has  no  other  cfeck  to  his  vicious  propensities  but  a  fear  of  hell- 
fire,  thinks  that  were  that  obstacle  removed,  man  would  riot  in 
vice  and  in  the  gratification  of  every  lust,  little  .loes  he  think  that 
virtue  may  be  loved  and  followed  with  as  much  ardour,  if  not 
more,  than  vice,  when  we  have  a  good  opinion  of  the  justice  and 
goodness  of  God.  But  how  is  it  possible  men  should  be  virtuous 
when  the  God  they  pretend  to  worship  is  represented  as  a  tyrant, 
and  unjust,  whose  forgiveness  for  an  ill  spent  life  may  be  obtain- 
ed by  the  most  ridiculous  ceremonies  or  foolish  credulity. 

We  have,  therefore,  undertaken  to  expose  and  set  in  its  true 
light  the  character  of  the  God  of  the  Hebrews  as  it  is  represent- 
ed in  the  first  books  of  the  Bible,  to  show  that  he  was  not  the 
true  God,  but  an  imaginary  being  conjured  up  to  serve  the  po- 
litical purposes  of  Moses — to  show  also  that  men  who  believe  in 
such  a  God  cannot  be  virtuous,  or  good  citizens,  or  believe  in 
the  true  God  ;  and  this  is  the  only  reason  why  so  much  iniquity 
abounds. 

Although  the  three  seras  that  I  have  noticed  are  remarkable  in 
the  history  of  human  mind,  yet  it  must  not  be  understood  that  I 
think  the  principles  of  the  Age  of  Reason  have  never  made  their 
appearance  ;  because  I  place  that  sera  as  following  the  other  two, 
or  that  there  are  no  other  a3ras — no — the  case  is,  that  although 
there  never  has  been  an  rera  which  could  be  justly  denominated 
the  Age  of  Reason,  yet  its  principles  have  been  recognised  in  all 
ages,  and  in  every  country  were  there  have  been  men  who  had 
courage  to  divest  themselves  of  the  prevailing  prejudices,  and  use 
(he  faculties  of  their  own  minds  to  discover  truth  ;  and  several 
of  the  authors  of  the  Bible  were  certainly  men  of  this  descrip- 
tion ;  such  were  the  authors  of  the  book  of  Job  ;  of  some  of  the 
Psalms  and  several  chapters  of  Isaiah,  (for  both  these  books  ap- 
pear to  be  a  collection,)  and  also  the  prophet  Malachi  and  Jesus 
the  son  of  Sirach,  (apocryphal,)  and  finally  Jesus  Christ  himself 
and  the  authors  of  the  Apostles  and  Jude — all  these  were  men 
evidently  exercising  their  own  reason  on  the  works  of  God,  in 
regard  to  which  men  will  in  all  ages,  and  in  every  country  with- 
out communication  with  each  other,  have  nearly  the  same  senti- 
ments, and  be  prompted  by  reflection  to  the  same  duties. — Uni- 
versal good  will  and  peace  to  man. 


14  DAY  USE 

RETURN  TO  DESK  FROM  WHICH  BORROWE1 

LOAN  DEPT. 


--^—  l*t(rirt^^ 


••      /-N 


LD21A-50m-2,'71 
(P2001slO)47G — A-32 


General  Library 

University  of  California 

Berkeley 


10)47GB 


Berkeley 


YB 


GENERAL  LIBRARY  -  U.C.  BERKELEY 


BDOOflMEfiD? 


